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3tpmgu | why isn't there a spending limit in us political campaigns like a salary cap in sports? | Wouldn't it make things more fair and balanced? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tpmgu/eli5_why_isnt_there_a_spending_limit_in_us/ | {
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"[There are.](_URL_0_) Problem is they have so many loopholes, candidates still amass over 500 million USD."
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States#Federal_contribution_limits"
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6ptyqe | why do the streams of water from my sink turn into one stream with hot water, but not the cold water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ptyqe/eli5why_do_the_streams_of_water_from_my_sink_turn/ | {
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"It probably has to do more with the specific plumbing of your house and not the temperature of the water. My guess is there may be some calcium buildup in the pipe that causes the turbulence "
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fcgbzb | what exactly do aids antiretroviral treatments do? do they work the same as other antiviral medications or do they just help alleviate symptoms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fcgbzb/eli5_what_exactly_do_aids_antiretroviral/ | {
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"HIV treatment is several medications that have different functions, all to make your immune system too difficult for HIV to attach and spread.\n\nSome prevent the viral RNA from becoming DNA to produce more virus. Another prevents the viral RNA from infecting your cell's DNA. Another type will prevent any new viruses from being viable. Basically, they make it so that your body cannot be used to produce new HIV virus.\n\nMost people who are HIV+ can become functionally HIV- with these medications. They're usually called \"undetectable\" because there isn't a measurable amount of virus in their blood (but HIV is good at hiding in tissues, so if you stop taking your meds, it will come back). People who are undetectable cannot pass HIV to others.",
"First, we need to make the distinction between HIV and AIDs. HIV is the actual virus. AIDs is what it call it when the virus weakens the immune system to the point where it can't function anymore. \n\n\nHIV medications include a number of different classes of antiretroviral medications. The different classes all work in different ways. The overall goal is to minimize the number of viral particles present, but they can't eliminate them entirely. Viruses can't reproduce on their own; they have to hijack our cells to do it. These medications work by disrupting that process. Some work by blocking the virus from entering our cells in the first place, and others work by disrupting the mechanisms by which the virus uses our cells to replicate. Generally, multiple drugs are used together for maximum effectiveness. These drugs can effectively make it so that a person with HIV never develops AIDs, but they need to be taken for life, as they don't cure the infection. It's also possible for the virus to become resistant to certain medications."
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9bjvhp | why is the us medical industry still heavily reliant on fax machines despite obamacare initiatives to digitize records? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9bjvhp/eli5_why_is_the_us_medical_industry_still_heavily/ | {
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"I have been told by doctor offices that the fax is secure, but email is not. The medical world is very concerned with patient privacy, almost to a fault, and it seems only a fax cannot be intercepted.",
"There are well established, decades-old procedures to treat faxes as legal documents. Those same procedures exist for digital records now, but they are less well known and less established. If you use a fax, you *know* you are doing it right and won't break regulations or expose yourself to liability. This is only *probably* true with a digital record.\n\nAlso, as someone who works a lot in medical IT, I can tell you hospitals are *terrible* at it. They are super conservative, mostly concerned with complying with regulations, and doctors are empowered to the point they just refuse the change. Many of them are still running computers from the 80's and 90's weren't designed with the internet in mind. Each one is a messly little snowflake, jury-rigged over decades to barely function like something form 2003. Getting rid of faxes is often the least of their worries.\n\nFinally, unlike what other people tell you, it has **nothing** to do with security. The fax format is completely unencrypted, it is a trivial matter to fake a fax. And most phone lines are digital at some point these days.",
"HIPAA refers to \"mail, fax, and phone\" as basic communications methods. If someone's medical records were stolen via phone or fax and they sued their doctor, the accuser would have to prove that the doctor's office was negligent. The doctor's office is innocent until proven guilty.\n\nHIPAA has complex security rules for e-mail and other electronic communications. If someone's medical records were stolen via email and they sued their doctor, the doctor's office has the burden of showing that they followed federal rules. The doctor's office is guilty until proven innocent."
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roc3a | why does the divisibility rule for 3 work? | If sum of all digits of any whole number in base ten is divisible by three, that number is divisible by three. Why does it work? Wikipedia gave me nothing, and the only explanation I found, was too complicated. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/roc3a/why_does_the_divisibility_rule_for_3_work/ | {
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"Take a three digit number ABC for example. The number is equal to 100A + 10B + C. You can rewrite this as 99A + 9B + (A + B + C). Now, 99A and 9B are obviously divisible by 3. So the entire sum is divisible by three if and only if (A + B + C) is divisible by 3.",
"Number theory is fun!\n\nLet's just play with it first and understand the properties.\n\nAn interesting thing happens when we add nine to a number. The last digit gets smaller by one, and the tens place gets bigger by one. If we add nine to any number, what the digits add up to with the 3's divisibility rule will be the same. For example, 21; 2+1=3; 21+9=30; 3+0=3. Or 40; 4+0 = 4; 49; 4+9=13 1+3 = 4.\n\nBecause 3*3=9, any positive multiple of 3 is a number of nines + 0, 3 or 6. If the 3's rule yields nine, the number is evenly divisible by 9. If it yields 3, the number is a multiple of nine plus three; if it yields 6, the number is a multiple of nine plus six. These are all multiples of 3.",
"When we write a string of numbers it is just short hand for a sum of powers. Mostly powers of 10. When we use powers of 10 we call that \"base ten\". For example:\n\n23 \n2( 10^1 ) + 3( 10^0 ) \n20 + 3 \n23 \n\nOr. another example \n\n5283 \n5( 10^3 ) + 2( 10^2 ) + 8( 10^1 ) + 3( 10^0 ) \n5000 + 200 + 80 + 3 \n5283 \n\nSo now, doing even division means getting a zero remainder when you divide. One thing about remainders is they add and multiply together just like regular numbers. \n\nThat means if I want the remainder when 3 divides into 5283 I can just add and multiply the remainders for \n\n5( 10^3 ) + 2( 10^2 ) + 8( 10^1 ) + 3( 10^0 ) after I divide by 3.\n\nbut notice all those powers of 10... the remainder after dividing by 3 is 1, so all those multiplications by 10's are like multiplying by 1. so that leaves 5 + 2 + 8 + 3. So checking for a remainder of zero in a number is just the same as checking for a remainder of zero in the sum of the digits.\n\nNOTE: The remainder from 10 after dividing by 9 is also 1. So everything up there is exactly the some and so 9 has the same division rule, to check if 9 goes into a number, just add the digits (when written in base ten) and check if 9 goes into that number. In fact, whatever remainder you get will be the same for the original number and the sum of the digits. ",
"It's because of how carrying works in addition. For 9+3, you carry by replacing the \"12\" in the one's place with a \"2\" in the one's place and a \"1\" in the ten's place. What happens to the sum of the digits when you carry? You subtract ten from a digit and add one from the digit to the left, to reduce the total sum of the digits by 9. You then repeat this process until every digit is smaller than 10.\n\nThe inductive proof is straightforward with this fact. If you add three to a number, you're going to add (3 - 9x) to the sum of the digits, where x is the number of times you had to carry. Since 3-9x is always divisible by three, and the sum of the digits of 3 is divisible by three, all numbers that are divisible by three has a sum-of-digits of 3."
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73kzde | what makes it that liquid "adheres down the side of a glass" sometimes? | Full disclosure that this is absolutely 100% based off [this post](_URL_0_) from r/mildlyinfuriating.
This happens every morning with my frigging coffee pot. What makes water (or any liquid for that matter) do this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73kzde/eli5_what_makes_it_that_liquid_adheres_down_the/ | {
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"Surface tension. Basically, the water molecules want to stay together due to intermolecular forces that attract them to each other. Due to the shape of the glass and based off of the speed at which you pour the glass, the water molecules will want to roll down the side of the cup instead of dropping straight to the ground",
"Water has two properties that cause this:\n1. Adhesion - water wants to stick to static electrically charged materials (just like glue). \n2. Cohesion - water wants to stick to itself like in droplets. \n\nWater is polar. It's hydrogen atoms have a different charge than its oxygen atom. So one end of the molecule is attracted to the other end of its neighbors. This is what causes the cohesion. \n\nWater is more adhesive to glass than cohesive to itself. When the water sticks to the lip of the glass, you need to break the bond to the glass to get the stream unstuck. It doesn't look like it, but the surface part sticking to the glass isn't moving. It's formed a sort of paved road that the stream flows along like an aqueduct. \n\nWhen you tip the glass more, you'll notice the the stream becomes too heavy for the cohesion to stick the whole thing together and the stream leaves the aqueduct and falls to the glass you're pouring into - but the paved road remains adhered to the glass upside down. \n\n**Applying the knowledge**\n\nYou can prevent this by rotating the glass slightly as you pour until a large enough stream is coming out. This keeps the road from being \"paved\". \n",
" > What makes water (or any liquid for that matter) do this?\n\nNot all liquids stick to the glass - Mercury (Hg), for example, does not \"wet\" glass due to there being stronger cohesive forces within the liquid than adhesive forces between the liquid and the glass (although I would recommend drinking coffee rather than mercury in the mornings).\n\nEDIT: Clarifying and formatting"
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2mft4r | we're in an enormous amount of national debt, most of it from other countries. what were we buying? | We have trillions of dollars in national debt in America, and people talk a lot about how "China owns all of our debt." What is the United States government buying from China exactly on credit? Or are we just borrowing money from them to buy things from ourselves? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mft4r/eli5_were_in_an_enormous_amount_of_national_debt/ | {
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"We're borrowing money to buy things ourselves, and no China does not own all of our debt, they own 8% of our debt. Most of the federal debt is owned by Americans.\n\nThe reason we go into debt is the deficit. Every year Congress has to write a budget, with both spending and revenue. If the revenue (in the form of taxes) isn't enough to cover all the spending, then the difference has to be made up by borrowing. The spending is on all kinds of things, the military, Medicare/Medicaid, food stamps, federal highway funding, and all kinds of stuff. Some years we bring in enough in taxes to pay for it all, some years we don't, therefore we must borrow, either from foreign governments or from private individuals who lend to us by buying Treasury bonds. ",
"We are not buying anything, in fact they are the ones that are buying our debt. \n\nHere is how it works. When the government does something that needs money (that is not directly paid for with some other measure) they issue government bonds, and sell these bonds to investors. The bond agrees to payback the face value of the bond plus interest after a certain period of time. \n\nChina has purchased a large amount of these bonds and that is why we \"owe\" them so much money. In actuality they just have a large number of bonds that will come due over the years in a very predictable manner. US citizens hold far more bonds than the Chinese government. ",
"Most US debt is owned by the US. So your entire premise is wrong\n\n60% of US debt is owned by other parts of the US government, US companies, and US citizens mostly through the purchase of US bonds. \n\nThe remaining 40% of the debt is foreign owned. China specifically only owns about 8% of our debt. "
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4nef6a | why does hot (temperature) foods intensify spiciness? | My mouth so spicy right now. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nef6a/eli5_why_does_hot_temperature_foods_intensify/ | {
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"It's actually closer to the other way around. Capsaicin, the substance that makes food spicy, interacts with the TRPV1 receptor-- your heat receptor. It lowers the threshold of the receptor, so normal temperature feels hot, and hot feels very, very hot. "
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7xvmd2 | if human and other mammal babies live off of milk the first few months of their life, why can't adults live off of milk/formula like an all around nutrition supplement? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xvmd2/eli5_if_human_and_other_mammal_babies_live_off_of/ | {
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"The nutritional needs of an infant are very different from the nutritional needs of an adult. ",
"Nutritional values of the different species' milk change. Dogs have different nutritional needs than cats which have different nutritional needs from cows which have different nutritional needs from humans. \n\nAdult dogs can, for instance, live off (Well designed) kibbles alone. That is a variety of 'formula'.",
"There is indeed a \"formula\" for adult nutrition. It's called Soylent.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt's not the same combination as infant formula or milk.",
"People are covering a lot of ground here but missing your question.\n\nBasically babies are born with a resivawr(sp, autocorrect you have failed me, you have failed yourself, and most of all you have failed the people of Reddit) of nutrients (such as iron) that are not present in mom's breast milk.\n\nThey are in fact born with enough iron and various other nutrients to survive off it for many months - but for best health you'll want to supplement after the first couple.\n\nSo the answer is that babies can't survive off it forever either and eventually need to eat food with the missing nutrients. Adults can do roughly the same thing - you can survive (but not thrive) off potatoes and cow's milk and absolutely nothing else.",
"Sci-fi story plot? This post made me imagine women being subsidized by society for their whole lives to keep the human population supplied with breast milk. This would be incredibly inefficient. Women require more calories to make milk than women who are not lactating. "
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5lh41s | how are stock voices recorded? (for example siri, alexa, or google translate.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lh41s/eli5_how_are_stock_voices_recorded_for_example/ | {
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"A phonem is the representation of a sound in a letter.\nFor example: mouse is pronounced /maus/ as written in phonems. Stock voicers record every phonem, and the computer knows the phonems to each word, so it pronounces the phonems which make up each word"
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49v5gb | what exactly does vigilante justice mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49v5gb/eli5_what_exactly_does_vigilante_justice_mean/ | {
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"In the simplest terms, it means justice administered by individuals (or angry mobs), outside of the legal system.\n\nIt could be a single person \"taking the law into their own hands\" and attacking a person who committed a crime against them. It could also be a person cruising around trying to punish criminals in general (acting like a comic book hero), or it could be a group (spontaneously angry crowd, organized group, semi-organized lynch mob) who seizes a person or persons they consider to be guilty and administers the crowd's idea of justice upon them.\n\nThe key is that the legal system is being ignored and/or subverted.\n\nThere are usually only cons to the situation. The rule of law is important, not only to everyone's safety, but also in terms of being certain that justice is adequately served. Even if a person is factually guilty and \"deserves\" whatever the extra-legal vigilantes do to them, there are other considerations to take into account: for instance, if the accused intends to plead guilty to charges & cooperate with an investigation, a lynch mob rushing the indictment proceedings, dragging the guy outside, and hanging him from a lamp-post may ensure that other guilty parties are never brought to justice.",
"Vigilante justice is literally taking the law into one's own hands - you see someone stealing a purse? You don't need the police, go after the thief yourself! Most superheros count as vigilantes, because they enforce 'justice'and punish 'villains' without having police or legal jurisdiction. \n\nPositives, vigilantes may have more if an on-the-ground presence, they can respond immediately. Not being bound by bureaucratic policy might give them more freedom, which you could argue is a negative but maybe in some cases it would help, dunno. There aren't a lot of positives. \n\nNegatives, they aren't obeying the law. They ignore the rights of the supposed wrongdoer and take matters into their own hands. It's bad enough when someone just gets beat up, but in some cases people die. The 'criminal' has rights too, which the vigilante ignores. "
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xgyrd | why are the equestrian events in the olympic games, but things like baseball/softball are not? | I don't understand how equestrian events are considered Olympic sports when it mainly consists of an animal doing the correct performance. Yet sports like baseball and softball were removed from them. Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xgyrd/eli5_why_are_the_equestrian_events_in_the_olympic/ | {
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"Because the Olympic Committee said so. There was a time when poetry and sculpting were Olympic events.\n\nThe Olympic Committee has some standards...they want to feature sports with a large worldwide following. There are also practical matters to consider...the soccer tournament, for example, has 7 rounds of up to 6 games each...for both men and women...with each game taking 2-3 hours at a large venue. Baseball, softball, or heaven forbid, cricket, can take even longer, and require venues a lot of Olympic hosts aren't likely to have. At some point, they have to decide if the effort is worth it. Soccer and basketball are popular enough globally...baseball and softball, not so much."
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2rm0ot | if marriage is a spiritual union, why does the government offer benefits if there's separation of church/state? | I don't really fully underhand. I underhand things like health insurance being cheaper because it's a bundle package, but Idk why I couldn't get a bundle insurance package with a friend. So why does the government get involved in civil unions that usually has personal religion. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rm0ot/eli5_if_marriage_is_a_spiritual_union_why_does/ | {
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"Marriage is really just a social status. The spiritual aspect is what people project on to marriage for what ever reason. A \"church\" wedding isn't a legal wedding. A state won't recognize a marriage unless it's declared in front of a judge rather than before God, or a god. This is different in other countries besides the U.S. ",
"because not all marriages are a spiritual union. My first marriage, when i was more of an atheist, was to another more or less atheist done at city hall with no mention of god. \n\nand it was still a marriage.\n\nThe problem i have with the \"spiritual union\" claim about marriage is that that is just what SOME people, not all people, think about it. \n\nMillions of people in the US are in such marriages. By your definition, if it is a religious spiritual union, they are not married. but yet they are. so clearly that definition is lacking.",
"You ask about government benefits but the only benefit you bring up is cheap insurance, something involving a non-governmental entity. Why don't you reformulated your question and actually ask about what you want to know rather than assuming we're mind readers? "
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duv2ni | why do many people tend to play with or rub parts of their face when being really concentrated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/duv2ni/eli5_why_do_many_people_tend_to_play_with_or_rub/ | {
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"Not an expert in any related field, but I have some guesses. \n\nMaybe the physical stimulation acts as a temporary distraction? That way it might break any existing thought pattern in order to re-focus on the problem, similar to getting up and physically walking away for a moment?\n\nPerhaps the physical stimulation helps light up different areas of our brain so that we think with more than just the logical parts?\n\nMaybe it is just a learned behavior because we see others do it so much?\n\nEither way, I am highly interested in an actual answer as well.",
"Touching your own face is a gesture of self-soothing so you can ease the anxiety responses your brain gives when facing concern.",
"Most likely a stress or conflict driven [displacement behavior](_URL_0_). Animals, including humans, tend to passively groom themselves or otherwise fiddle with stuff when they are motivated toward two different conflicting actions, and also when generally stressed.",
"Some thoughts: \n\nIf you think about where a hand will most comfortably touch ones self: butt, thigh, groin, belly, chest, face head; all of these are places people will fidget with at different times. Stress we often touch our head, thought we touch our mouths, grief/joy we touch our hearts, dread our stomachs. Etc. A lot of that is due to where we are feeling things internally (increased heart rate for example) so it makes sense to touch the location of the emotion. Thought is in the head, so when we are thinking, maybe it brings our hands to our face/head. \n\nFidgeting seems to smooth and help focus, so that’s why I would assume if the easy places to start fidgeting, the face is the go-to for deep thought."
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7o0swg | why you need blue and red to view 3d, why cant you use other colors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7o0swg/eli5_why_you_need_blue_and_red_to_view_3d_why/ | {
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"Doesn't need to be blue and red, you just need the filter in the glasses to match the colours of the film/image. You could make your own using say, green and yellow plastic and and some crayons",
"They aren't strictly required, it could be any color. \nRed, Green and Blue would work better because that's the colors the cells in the eyes can see. So blocking all but one of those would result in the clearest pictures. \nRed and Blue just so happened to be the cheaper than Green filters to make. ",
"The most important thing to understand is that visible light is a continuous spectrum of wavelengths, not three discrete colors. 3D glasses filter the physical light, not our internal perception of the light. That means they work with the infinitely many wavelengths of real light, not with the trichromatic system of human vision.\n\nFor example, you could make a display with 6 color channels per pixel, filter out three of them in each lens of your 3D glasses, and get what looks like perfect independent full color images in each eye. There is plenty of \"room\" in the visible spectrum for the very limited color information that our eyes can pick up.\n\nBut that would require a custom display and complex multi-band filters in the 3D glasses, which would be expensive.(\\*) Red-blue glasses are designed for cheap 3D, which means they have to use cheap filters and they have to work with standard printing/display technology.\n\nStandard printing/display technology uses three colors. There's a lot of variety in the actual spectra, but something like [this](_URL_0_) is probably typical: the range of visible wavelengths is divided into three parts, and there's a color channel in each part, and pretty good separation between them.\n\nI'll call the three parts \"R, G, B.\" To avoid crosstalk between the eyes, you probably want to send one of these to one eye only and the other two to the other eye only. There are three choices: R/GB, G/RB, and B/RG.\n\nG/RB would probably be more expensive since you'd have to filter out a narrow band of wavelengths in the middle of the visible spectrum. B/RG is a bad choice because blue-only images are hard on the eyes, and there's little brightness perception in the blue. That leaves R/GB.\n\nI don't actually know the spectra of the filters in real red-blue glasses. But my guess, based on everything I wrote above, is that one filter transmits light about 600nm or so, and the other transmits light below 550nm or so, and that works well enough to allow a 3D effect with a lot of different display/printing methods.\n\n & nbsp;\n\n(\\*) In practice, if you have full control over the display technology, it's cheaper to use polarization or timed shutters instead of different wavelengths. I just wanted to point out that you *could* use different wavelengths, because there are plenty to choose from. People sometimes get the idea that visible light is limited to red, green, and blue."
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30rr9q | why do psychedelics seem to so often induce a spiritual/religious experience? | I've read a lot of trip reports for various psychedelics such as Shrooms, LSD, DMT, Ayahuasca, Ibogaine, Mescaline, and Salvia and I noticed that it was very common for the user to have a spiritual/religious experience when under the influence of any of these substances. A lot of times, they hear things that aren't even necessarily a part of their own religion. For example, it seems to me it's pretty common that people hear tribal drum beats and things of that nature when they're tripping. Is there any scientific reasoning behind this or does it just so happen that a lot of people happen to have an experience that they would interpret as a spiritual/religious one? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30rr9q/eli5_why_do_psychedelics_seem_to_so_often_induce/ | {
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"Whenever you see, hear, or basically sense something with little explanation of what it is, you attribute some logic that will most accurately describe what it is. I.e. a shadow with no figure is a ghost. When you take these drugs you get the best , and often original feelings your body has ever experienced. I've had friends take an acid trip only one time, and they now go to church every single Sunday. Ironically, it can change an entire lifetime perspective on life. When something this different comes into your life, and you sense something that just doesn't seem to be coincidence, it's natural to claim it a supernatural. I am a huge supernatural believer, but personally, don't confine the use of drugs with spiritual attachment. But that's just my opinion. You'll just have to have your own experience to really understand.\n\n",
"I'm not sure it's very well studied, but from personal experience there's a reason they're called \"entheogens\".\n\n[This](_URL_0_) may have some of the information you're looking for; it cites a study showing that connection between disparate brain regions increase during magic mushroom trips. [This](_URL_1_) looks like it deals specifically with your question.\n\nI'll look for more religion-related articles now.\n\nEdit: my second link seems to answer your question on pages 5-6."
]
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1vykqa | why don't the owners of pokemon create an iphone pokemon game? they would make a killing. | Seriously, who wouldn't buy that game? It's like they're standing over a gold mine and just don't feel like digging. Am I wrong to think that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vykqa/eli5_why_dont_the_owners_of_pokemon_create_an/ | {
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"coz pokemon was made by nintendo. nintendo wants you to play on their devices, instead of on your phone. ",
"It's easy. If a big reason you sell so much hardware (Game Boys) at $200 is because people want to play your game ($50) on it, why would you want to give them an excuse to play it on someone else's hardware?",
"Nintendo has kept to the premise that their games are a larger and better experience then an iphone game. This is part of why they justify selling thier games for $50. A game at that price point would be a very hard sell on iphone where most users are expecting to buy games for $1. ",
"You are able to play Pokemon on an iPhone with a gba emulator. A simple google search should find it. I have only found one problem and is easily fixed by changing your date to 2010",
"No, you're not wrong. A lot of industry observers think the same as you. Nintendo is leaving a lot of money on the table by not making a multi-platform push for its intellectual property.\n\nNintendo is a Japanese company. That implies that it acts differently and responds to different forces than a US or a European company. Japanese companies are insulated from a lot of the market forces that \"discipline\" US and European companies. Hostile takeovers are rare in Japan. Corporate ownership in Japan is often held in a matrix of interlinked companies and banks who coordinate their control of the companies in the matrix and aren't very responsive to outside shareholder interests. Management in Japanese companies is often much stronger in terms of their ability to set an agenda for the company than the shareholders. Japanese companies are also very focused on how their actions and operations relate to the success or failure of the Japanese nation.\n\nSo Japanese companies don't always make decisions that maximize their profits.\n\nNintendo's managers and the matrix of entities that control it want it to continue to be a successful hardware platform manufacturer as well as a game software developer. They want this for a variety of reasons, some economic, some political, some nationalistic, and some personal. \n\nNintendo's strategy to remain a hardware manufacturer is to tie its game brands exclusively to its hardware platforms. As long as those game brands remain strong enough to retain large markets, those customers will buy Nintendo hardware by default to play Nintendo games. If Nintendo made its games for other hardware platforms, it would likely lose its hardware business or at a minimum see its hardware business lose ground to other platforms and likely become unprofitable."
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5uolq8 | why do we have "favorite" inanimate objects? | I have a screwdriver at work. There are many like it, but this one is my favorite - for no discernible reason. It's the first one that I grab, and I "enjoy" using it more than the others. I once took it with me on a work trip so I could use it other places too. It functions just like any other P1 sized Phillips driver.
Maybe my example is a bit hyperbolic, but why do we have attachments to particular inanimate objects that aren't in any way unique? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uolq8/eli5why_do_we_have_favorite_inanimate_objects/ | {
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"I think its because you trust it. You have used it and you are familiar with it. I think that after a while it becomes more symbolic and habitual than it is when it's first your favorite. There was something that you found \"pleasing\" about it that separated it from the rest when you first used it and so you favor it over others making you less likely to replace it with another; or perhaps it was the first one you used and you cling to it for nostalgic reasons. there can be many reasons we have favorite things. Some could be sentimental value; say if it were your fathers. All kinds of reasons but i think the short answer is we instill value on them(for varying reaons) and the value accrues over time. So we see them as more favorable and they become our favorites."
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4wctck | where does the cholesterol come from in shrimp, where is it located? they don't feel greasy or fatty. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wctck/eli5_where_does_the_cholesterol_come_from_in/ | {
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"The membrane of every animal cell contains cholesterol.\n\nThat being said, if you're worried about it, don't. Dietary cholesterol (e.g. from egg yolks or shrimp) have only a small effect on your cholesterol levels. It's the trans and saturated fats you have to worry about, so go easy on the cheeseburgers!",
"Dietary cholesterol has almost no affect on your blood cholesterol. Blood cholesterol is made by your liver. \n\nThe cholesterol in food is from the breakdown of proteins and it is a step on the way to food being broken down into smaller components and those smaller components are what are absorbed by your body. "
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e1vsmb | what are the differences between cbt vs psychoanalysis, and why their practitioners seem to be a feud with each other? |
I would like to understand the basic differences among these two variation of therapy. Also, when reading about either of them, it often seem that the practitioners of one of them points of the (apparent) many flaws of the other; for example, I've read accounts of CBT-therapists claiming Psychoanalysis doesn't work in the long run and is not scientific (some arguments regarding the unconscious and sexuality look like that to me), and also the latter claiming that any problematic behavior "removed" through CBT will come back eventually. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e1vsmb/eli5_what_are_the_differences_between_cbt_vs/ | {
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"CBT aims to resolve a behaviour that you want to change, using exercises or ‘circuit breaker’ activities as the tool; psychoanalysis aims for you to get to know your subconscious and unconscious self by using the relationship with your therapist as the tool. \n\nTherefore: CBT is fine if you want to stop panicking before speeches (for example) but if you want to become a more self aware person and learn how to become the version of yourself you’d most like to be in all areas of your life, not just one habit or issue, then psychoanalysis is the more suitable option.",
"At its most basic level, CBT has to do with exploring and reframing conscious thought, and psychoanalysis has to do with exploring the subconscious. \n\nThere’s a really famous picture used in textbooks that shows an iceberg as a way to visualize the conscious and subconscious mind. CBT covers everything above the water, psychoanalysis covers everything below. \n\nThe full answer is more complex, but that’s the simple version.",
"CBT takes a more reactive approach, giving you tools do deal with immediate problems, how can I minimize a panic attack, and can I stop myself from binge eating, etc. Why you do bad things is less important than finding ways to stop them.\n\nPsychoanalysis is about exploring the root causes of problems. If you are having problems sustaining relationships because a childhood abuse resulted in trust issues, dealing with that unresolved conflict can create a closure that allows you to move on.\n\nBoth have their strengths and weaknesses. CBT sometimes is too much of a band-aid, psychoanalysis can get lost in the weeds of childhood narratives and just-so stories (see *repressed memories*). Most therapists will use a combination approach, you only hear the purists more because they are louder."
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22clj6 | reddit wont let me post anymore | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22clj6/eli5_reddit_wont_let_me_post_anymore/ | {
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"You used your account to post this, didn't you? Who told you you have to make a new one? Or are you banned from a particular subreddit or something?\n\nYou should consider verifying your email (use a throwaway email if you want) - that usually lessens the posting restrictions. "
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2gql2u | with the prevalence of sti/stds, why isn't getting tested mandatory part of your physical/check up? | Would seem like a no-brainer at this point, you're already sharing a lot of extremely personal details with your doctor, not like this is gonna be much of a stretch.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gql2u/eli5with_the_prevalence_of_stistds_why_isnt/ | {
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"A lot of STD tests for people with penises involve shoving a long Q-tip down your urethra. People don't want to do this unless they already believe they might have contracted something (and even people who know they have an STD sometimes still refuse to be tested). So if you're sexually active, if you consistently use protection or you've only been with the same person, you probably don't want to get tested because you don't really need it. "
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9ufp4o | with sites like 538 projecting that democrats taking control of the house, but republicans maintaining control of the senate, how does this impact policy? and what kind of impact does that have on the republican's agenda moving forward? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ufp4o/eli5_with_sites_like_538_projecting_that/ | {
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"For certain things, this will mean no change from current situations. Primarily this will be reflected in executive appointments (cabinet members, judges, ambassadors). These things are handled entirely by the Senate.\n\nOn larger policy items, like tax reform, medical insurance, immigration, this might force more cooperation between the parties. Given recent politics, however, it is more likely that it will mean far less will get done, because Republicans have been strong arming the Democratic party for years, and it's unlikely Democrats will continue to accept that now that they have a little bit of power.",
"The Republicans won't be able to get any legislation passed since they won't have control of the House and legislation must pass both chambers. The Democrats, of course, will also not be able to get anything passed.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe Republican agenda is likely to focus on this stalling as proof of the Democrats obstructionism. Additionally, any consequences that occur because of legislation passed or not passed while Republicans were totally in control will then be blamed on the Democrats.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe Democrats will likely focus on investigations and passing items that they want to build their platform on in 2020. This can force the Republicans in the House to take a stance on issues they might not want to speak out on.",
"In the current political climate, Democratic control of the house would likely shut down Congress's ability to do ... just about anything. Anything the president wants to do that involves changing government spending -- from building a border wall to deploying troops overseas to changing Medicare -- could be stopped by the Democratic House.\n\nThis would not stop the Republicans from appointing officials, judges, and ambassadors: these are handled in the Senate. Nor would it stop the President from issuing executive orders changing the way the federal government operates: ordinarily if the President over-reaches with an executive order, Congress will pass a law contradicting it. But Congress won't be able to pass anything.\n\nThe overall point: a House majority would give the Democrats the ability to halt much of the Republican agenda, but they would have no power to push their own agenda forward. Democrats in the House would mean gridlock, but most Democrats think gridlock would be an improvement."
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54cw3i | why is there still no anti-nuclear bomb defence systems if theres such a threat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54cw3i/eli5_why_is_there_still_no_antinuclear_bomb/ | {
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"We do have anti nuclear missile technology. We can shoot down missiles in the atmosphere, but the problem is that a load of radioactive material will be dumped in the atmosphere, which isn't fun.",
"We have missile defense systems. I dont know where you got the idea that we dont.\n\n_URL_0_",
" > just people cant figure out how to shoot down a nuke mid-air or something\n\nThe reentry phase of an ICBM has the strike vehicle traveling at over 4 miles per *second*. Also consider that each missile carries multiple warheads which are independently targeted to strike multiple locations. This may also include decoy missiles to draw away defenses.\n\nThere is also the issue of escalating the arms race. If mutually assured destruction doesn't hold then one side will need to develop better weapons to counter, etc.",
"Despite decades of claims, what researchers have found over and over is that it's really, really REALLY hard to intercept an ICBM traveling at supersonic speed. To date, it has not been done on a reliable basis. And bear in mind that if you DO manage to intercept and blow up an incoming nuke, you prevent a nuclear detonation, but at the cost of scattering highly-toxic fissile material over a wide area. So, um...yay?\n\nHowever, the fact that they don't work hasn't stopped us from actually building and deploying them.\n\nFew people are aware of it, but we actually have two operational \"Star Wars\" bases, one in Alaska, the Other in California, sitting there waiting for Soviet nukes to come flying over the horizon. These things have already cost well over $140 billion, and suck up about a billion more in upkeep a year. And the military has been agitating to build another on the east coast, because why not?\n\nThe punchline is that they were never able to make it work in testing. And I followed this program closely all throughout its test years, used to photograph the launches of test vehicles from Vandenberg AFB in California.\n\nWhat they DID show during testing was that if the enemy fires at most one or two missiles in daylight, in good weather, with plenty of advance warning, and either don't use decoys or--no kidding--puts a freaking *homing device* on the real warhead, then our awesome, $140 billion system can occasionally get very close to almost knocking them down. Sometimes.\n\nThis is why we can't have nice things.\n\nOther systems, like Israel's much-hyped Iron Dome, don't work much better in real life. It has a success rate of something like 30%, and that's against slow, POS rockets that can barely fly without falling down on their own.\n",
"Technology like that does exist. There's even an entire part of the US Department of Defense [devoted to it](_URL_0_) It's just a really, really expensive system for a really unlikely threat. \n\nThe current US anti-ICBM defense system is the [Ground-based Midcourse Defense](_URL_1_), which is designed to hit missiles in the \"midcourse\" stage of flight when they're in space. \n\nThere are [different systems](_URL_2_) for short/medium-range missiles. \n\nThe US [used to have a system](_URL_3_) for close-in (1-20 miles) defense against nuclear missiles, but doesn't anymore, or if there is, it's classified."
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qktep | stuxnet | I was reading [this post](_URL_1_) on the front page and it was mentioned quite frequently; Described as "the most vicious malware of all-time."
Tried watching the [Ted Talk](_URL_0_) but it was just way over my head.
What makes it so crazy? Why is it different than any other virus or malware? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qktep/eli5_stuxnet/ | {
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"Ooo, this one's awesome.\n\nSo, the idea here wasn't just to create a virus that spreads. The idea was to create a very particular virus that would spread but would **only** do something when it found **exactly** what it was looking for.\n\nIn this case, it was programmed to go after a very particular sort of industrial programming that was in use in factories and - not a coincidence - the facilities for enriching uranium.\n\nSo it was supposed to spread through any sort of computer network it could find. But when it found one of these particular industrial systems, it would go off.\n\nWhich is when it did really cool stuff. For example, the centrifuges to make the highgrade stuff for nukes have to be really carefully balanced. Stuxnet first interrupted the reporting layer (think of it like putting up fake video feed on security footage in the movies) so that it would say everything was fine. Then it threw slight changes at the centrifuges so that they would go just a little bit out of whack and eventually break down. They're really sensitive, so that would knock them out for a while.\n\nThere were a couple other reporting spoofs it did, too. Basically, it was a targeted virus - spread but did nothing to a lotta things, found what it was looking for, and then executed a series of coordinated attacks without any intervention to disable part of Iran's nuclear production capabilities.\n\nEdit: Accidentally some words.",
"Viruses and malware, ages ago, used to be the equivalent of a computer geek's prank. They'd spread out, infect a computer and print strange messages, or play songs, or do other rather harmless things. People did it just so they could be famous.\n\nSome of them started to be malicious, for no other reason than they could be. They'd mess up the files on your computer or, at worst, delete your hard drive. Rather than just being famous, people were now trying to be infamous.\n \nThen, when the internet became popular, some rather immoral people found that you could actually make money writing malware. You could use them to control people's computers. You could use their computer to send out spam e-mail, or collect email for lists that you could sell, or collect credit card numbers, or what ever. Nasty things. You could actually write malware to make money, illegally.\n\nStuxnet didn't do any of that. Stuxnet got on your desktop computer and did .... nothing. That was strange. But lets get back to that in a second. Because the way it spread was pretty scary.\n\nWhen you break into a computer you need something called an exploit. It's basically a bug in the system that gives you access you shouldn't have. \n\nGenerally, when these bugs are discovered the company that makes the software fixes them quickly so that nothing can use them. Unfortunately, not everyone updates their software immediately. Between the time that the bug is discovered and the time that people get the updates, malware writers can take advantage of the exploit. \n\nBut, since writing software takes awhile, it's very rare to have an exploit that lasts long enough for people to take advantage of.\n\nBut, there's something called a *zero-day exploit*. These are bugs that exist in software that no one has found out about yet. If you were to figure out an exploit and not tell anyone you could write malware that would use that exploit and your malware would be very successful.\n\nThese zero-day exploits are very rare, and are highly valued by the bad people who make malware. People pay big money for them.\n\nStuxnet took advantage of one of these.\n\nActually, that's not true. \n\nIn order to spread, Stuxnet use **four** zero-day exploits. Four zero-day exploits no one knew about. And not some exploit on some unknown peice of badly written software. These were zero-day exploits in Microsoft Windows. That's completely unheard of. This isn't something that one person in their basement figured out. This is somethings way, way bigger. Besides, if you had four zero-day exploits, why would you use them in one piece of malware? It would make more sense to save them, and use them in four different peices of malware. Unless someone wanted to make REALLY sure Stuxnet got its job done.\n\nThere's also a host of other technically difficult things Stuxnet does. So much so that there is no way one person wrote it by themselves. This is something that would take a team of programmers months and months to design and test. Stuxnet was something entirely new.\n\nBut what did it do? \n\nNothing.... until it found a Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition -- or SCADA -- system. And not just any old Siemes control system. Stuxnet checked to make sure specific types of hard drives were attached and that the system was attached to specific types of control systems. \n\nWhat does all this mean? Why would it check for specific hardware configurations? It seems it Stuxnet was looking for Iranian nuclear control systems\n\nDid you get that? This was a computer program specifically designed to spread across the internet and infect Iranian **nuclear facilities**. It knew exactly what it was looking for. This is the stuff of science-fiction novels.\n\n And not just any old nuclear facility. They now figure Stuxnet was designed to infiltrate specifically the Natanz nuclear enrichment lab. And once it got there it got control of the control systems it messed with the centrifuge's speed and tried to break the machinery. In the end, Stuxnet destroyed around 1,000 centrifuges in Natanz.\n\nWho was behind it? Well, no one can be sure. Because of the complexity of the program, most people think it must be a government. Israel maybe, or the USA. But no one is sure.\n\nBut, the idea that computer programs can be written, with that level of sophistication, to infiltrate nuclear enrichment plants....? Scary stuff.\n\n \n"
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1s5h7j | are there tiny planets in the universe? if so, would potential life on there be relative to size? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s5h7j/are_there_tiny_planets_in_the_universe_if_so/ | {
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"I mean say the size diameter of USA? Tiny compared to earth",
"The smallest \"planet\" that we know of is [Ceres](_URL_0_) which despite only having a diameter of 952km is spherical. It is not considered a true planet however as it has not cleared its orbit of other objects, instead being part of the asteroid belt.\n\nSmall planets have major disadvantages when it comes to having life. The gravity is too weak to hold onto an atmosphere, which also means there can be no liquid water at the surface. The mass would also be too low to sustain a liquid core, meaning no magnetic shield to block out radiation\n\nThe best chance for life on a world so small would be if it were an icy moon around a much larger gas giant planet, the tidal forces could heat the core melting the ice at the surface forming pockets of liquid water. This is believed to be that case with several of Jupiters moons, such as Europa and Ganymede.\n\nOf course there could be more exotic forms of life not requiring water or an atmosphere, and immune to cosmic and solar radiation, but we dont know if that is possible"
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1p13iv | how does steam make a profit from their summer/winter salea | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p13iv/eli5_how_does_steam_make_a_profit_from_their/ | {
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"Steam (and a game's publishers) aren't making a physical product so the only costs would be design and advertising. Since the games that go on sale are older both of these costs are irrelevant because the game has (hopefully) already covered the design costs and there is no advertising for old games. Also, because the games are older and newer better versions usually exist they are being purchased much less often. So, by holding a sale where everything is so cheap that people buy it because \"what the hell it's only $10\" they are making nothing but profit. It is a fantastic business model because these are customers that they wouldn't have ordinarily had and the games are already made so why not sell them for 5-10 bucks a piece and bring in some extra cash without doing any additional work.",
"Lest say I have a game priced at $50. 5 people buy it a week, that comes out to $250 a week. But I slash the price to $5. Madness! Now 500 people buy my game in that sale week. That's $2,500 in one week. The result is I have made more money by lowering the price then I would have made by not touching it. ",
"Most of the games on sale are already at a profitable turning point and so the selling price only has to be quite low to negate the distribution costs.",
"/u/Jim777PS3 is actually on the right path here. What is important to keep in mind here is that game developers when they sell their games through Steam sign very strict non-disclosure agreements, so we don't see a whole lot of concrete numbers come from them or game developers (This makes a lot of sense because they might make different deals with different developers, and having developers say \"But why do I have a worse deal than < someone else > ?\" is bad for business).\n\nWhat we do know is that Valve usually gets a certain percentage from the sales on Steam. So let's say they get 10% of the sale price of game XXY every time a copy of XXY sells. We also know that game sales peak during 3 separate events: Release, Sequels Releasing, and Sales. The best concrete data of a game that I have comes from [a dustforce blog post](_URL_0_). Their day 1 sales were 4,796 sales per day. Their day 30 sales were substantially lower, 101 sales per day. It dwindles from there. If you look at their figures, game sales pretty much stopped only a few months after they released. So both they and Valve were making no money off the game. During their Midweek Madness sale, they sold an additional 7383 copies of the game. So even at 50% off, they (and Valve) made a ton more money off the additional sales.\n\nSo that's how Steam sales work, Valve chooses games that's sales have stagnated to some point, and are no longer bringing in profits, and boosts their sales through a discount price. It's not like Valve has a huge cost to put on a sale, nor a developer for that matter. The game is made, and all the investment is over with. The only cost at that point is server costs for Valve, which, for most indie games that go on sale, are pretty negligible. "
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xt25h | what was darwin wrong about in the origin of species? | I accept the theory of evolution, I just don't understand the difference in today's theory of evolution and what Darwin had presented. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xt25h/eli5_what_was_darwin_wrong_about_in_the_origin_of/ | {
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"Some things off the top of my head: \n\nHe didn't know about genes. So he thought that change always took place smoothly--for instance, if ancestral elephants were being selected for size, each generation of elephant would be slightly bigger, to about the same degree.\n\nNow we know that change *often* happens that way, but that sometimes it happens a lot at once. Like, maybe moles didn't lose their eyes bit by bit--maybe one day, one just lost the gene that says: Build an eye.\n\nSimilarly, Darwin thought that change was always going on at a somewhat steady pace, whereas today at least some scientists talk about \"punctuated equilibrium.\" That means that once a species is well adapted for its niche, evolutionary pressure can keep it stable over a long time (because any mutation is likely to be worse). Then if something in the environment shifts, the species can change quickly.\n\nAn example: Let's say there was a predator that lived in trees and ate the ancestor of bats back when they couldn't fly. It could have gone on for millions of years with little change, happily eating those not-quite-bats. Then the bats learn to fly and the predator can't catch them anymore. Suddenly, mutations that were mostly just nuisances before--a taste for fruit instead of meat, an inability to climb trees (forcing it to chase down ground animals), and so on--are better than the old way of doing things.\n\nBut really, it's surprising how little he got wrong."
]
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[]
] | |
4dtl9d | what is happening when my computer update its system even though it's not connected to wifi? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dtl9d/eli5_what_is_happening_when_my_computer_update/ | {
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"text": [
"Check your update settings. Usually it will download updates in the background while you're browsing the net, then when you're about to turn it off you'll see the usual update/and shutdown.",
"It's either trying to update and not being able to download it, or it downloaded it earlier and is configuring it.",
"The updates were already downloaded in the background. It is easier to apply updates during shutdown because files that need to be modified are no longer in use and locked by the operating system. "
]
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[],
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3qenit | why are banana peels associated with slipping over, especially when other foods can be even more slippery? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qenit/eli5_why_are_banana_peels_associated_with/ | {
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"text": [
"A lot of old music hall gags involved slipping on poo, this was considered innapropriate for films so banana peels were substituted",
"What other common food are you thinking of? Also, have you every tried to slip on a banana peel on purpose? I have, that shit is slippery.",
"It all starts back in the time horses were widely used within towns and cities and the motorised car was yet to be dreamt of.\nAs you can imagine, a lot of horses in a small area eventually results in a lot of \"exhaust products\" being dropped on the roads.\nWhilst people were hired to sweep up the \"left behinds\" in the larger, richer cities, they weren't always perfect at the art. And in less-affluent towns, they didn't have / couldn't afford to hire these sweepers.\nUnfortunately, this led to people otherwise distracted with their day-to-day activities, stepping into these deposited \"brown cakes\" and ultimately becoming victims of the lack of traction they provided, causing those unfortunate soles to slip, slide and fall.\n\nOnlookers found the tragedy of their counterparts humorous, especially so if their fall from grace was quite spectacular or deserved.\n\nThe problem with transferring this to the stage however, was that although blatantly hilarious, having steaming piles of \"burnt horse fuel\" on stage was both impractical (imagine being the stage hand tasked with cleaning up afterwards!), unsanitary (the smell in a small, hot theatre would be traumatising) and obviously horrid for those tasked with \"slipping\" in it.\n\nBananas were chosen as a suitable replacement, as they offered none of the problems using \"horse patties\" would bring, and had the added benefit of being bright yellow, meaning they would stand out on stage. Also, whilst far less common as being a slip hazard in public places, it was already becoming common knowledge that the innocent-looking Banana was sheathed in a demonic wrapping of slippery destruction (perhaps not that much, but people were aware that they did indeed cause a slight loss of balance when innocently stepped upon without due care).\n\n\nThere is also the argument that banana peels, as the fruit became popular, were often dropped on the paths/sidewalks and thus provided a slip hazard for any pedestrians who were unlucky enough not to spot them before it was too late, leading to many, many reports of broken bones and damaged egos, causing St Luis City to pass a law in 1909 that banned the dropping of banana skins in public. \nHowever, I personally believe this may be a bit of folklore / old-wives tale, as the price of this fruit back then would have been quite high, meaning the number of skins actually being dropped on the sidewalks must have been very few. Whilst still being possible for people to inadvertently slip and fall, I can't imagine the numbers would have been high enough to warrant the \"gag\" being transferred to the stage.\n\n\n\"Sliding\" Billy Watson was perhaps the first person to utilize the Banana on stage during his comedy acts. The story goes he had witnessed some poor chap meet his gravitation demise due to a discarded skin on the sidewalk. He found it funny as fudge and decided he must incorporate it into his act.\n\nCharlie Chaplin is credited as being the first to utilise the fruit \"on screen\" during one of his silent movies.\nIt proved a hit with the audience, thus sealing it's comedic acting fate."
]
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[],
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55qkn2 | if you put energy into a closed system to reduce its entropy, you will have increased the entropy outside of the system. how does that work? | I've heard that if you put energy into tidying a room to reduce its entropy, you will have increased the entropy outside of your room as a result? Is that true? If so, I don't get it. I have tidied up a room and not caused rooms outside to get less tidy.
Edit: Thanks for taking the time to answer. Makes more sense now. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55qkn2/eli5_if_you_put_energy_into_a_closed_system_to/ | {
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"In order to clean your room, you had use some of your own energy. That energy ultimately came from plants (either directly by eating them or by animals which ate them). The plants gained their energy from the sun which is gradually increasing in entropy as it radiates its energy.\n\nYou need to look at the entire system, not just a small portion.",
"If you put energy into a closed system, it's not really \"closed\" anymore, now is it?\n\nWhen you clean your room, you're burning calories that you got from eating the pasta last night, which was made from plants harvesting the sunlight which is spilling out an awful lot of sunlight everywhere making a \"mess\" of things.",
"It takes work to decrease entropy, and work produces waste heat, which increases entropy; so not only does any effort to reduce the entropy of a system come at a direct cost to another system, it also produces more entropy. ",
"Correction: you don't put energy *into* the system: you do work to move energy from inside the system to outside. Typically all the energy -- both what you extracted from the system and the energy you used to power the extraction process -- end up outside.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe \"cleaning your room\" thing is a fun analogy, but it's only an analogy. A legit example is a refrigerator. Electrical energy drives a motor which pumps heat out of the refrigerator, reducing the entropy inside. Both the motor's energy and the heat you removed get dumped into the kitchen, increasing the entropy there.",
"Also see:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd for some philosophical physics fun:\n\n_URL_1_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/ideas/refrig.gif"
],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics",
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon"
]
] | |
2o2itu | why does my broken bone hurt in bad weather? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o2itu/eli5_why_does_my_broken_bone_hurt_in_bad_weather/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Is it near a joint? I have some arthritis from breaking my tibia near my ankle and pressure changes make it hurt. This could explain it more\n _URL_0_",
"I broke my leg a few years ago and have experienced the same pain on occasion. From what I can tell reading on the web, there's not much well-documented research on this, and what research has been done focused on arthritis, not old fractures. The most likely cause is that the barometric pressure change causes the fluids in your body to change pressure, which makes your nerves more sensitive."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=14686"
],
[]
] | ||
2rgpyo | what would happen if a person were given a lie detector about something they don't remember? | An example:
Say a murderer was conked over the head with the brick. They do not remember the murder (for arguments sake, let's say they are 100% guilty). How would a polygraph read, and why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rgpyo/eli5_what_would_happen_if_a_person_were_given_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnfoyhl",
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"text": [
"A lie detector doesn't detect lies.\n\nA lie detector detects if a person thinks they are lying or not.",
"A lie detector does not determine whether a person is lying. It determines if the person is showing the physiological responses typically seen in lying. The problem is that these responses also appear if the person is nervous about the question.\n\nIf the person is nervous enough about the question, then the lie detector might show deception in the response. If they are not nervous about not remembering the answer to your question, then the test will not show deception.\n\nThis is a lie detector is not a very good test and this is the reason why it's not allowed in court."
]
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[],
[]
] | |
cbiid8 | why is so much food packaged in plastic? i understand it's probably cheaper than using wood or metal or other forms of packaging but it's just so wasteful. i think people would prefer more "premium" packaging materials as well. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cbiid8/eli5_why_is_so_much_food_packaged_in_plastic_i/ | {
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"It's important to remember the flipside to 'premium packaging'- it almost always weighs more than plastic.\n\nConsider a steak. On a styrofoam tray, wrapped in plastic.\n\nHow would it be shipped? Paper, probably, but that has hefty environmental concerns as well, not to mention health issues. No one will buy raw chicken wrapped in butcher's paper from a grocery store. Some of these concerns can be mitigated through better access to locally produced foods, but at this time, most foods are still industrially produced and travel rather long distances.\n\nAs for glass and metal, back to weight. We take a step forward in terms of plastic waste, but a step back in terms of shipping - more weight translates directly to increased fuel consumption.\n\nSo.\n\nIt's not just cheap, it's light, and (in some cases) regarded as much better for food storage than some traditional packaging methods.",
"Not only is it lighter than metal and more durable than glass, many types of plastic packaging also extend the shelf life of perishable foods, which reduces food waste. \n\nBefore modern packaging and refrigeration a lot of food was wasted because it didn't survive being transported from the farms to cities. Also, people used to get food poisoning more frequently because of food spoilage and poor sanitation.\n\nFor instance, a head of lettuce will wilt very quickly after it's picked. If it's put in a completely sealed container it won't wilt but it will start to rot after a couple of days so you need lots of holes for ventilation. Plastic clamshells keep the lettuce at just the right humidity plus they prevent the leaves from being crushed.\n\nMeat packaging is similar. Vacuum sealed plastic bags keep oxygen away from the meat, which keeps it fresh longer and plastic wrapped trays are often filled with nitrogen or carbon dioxide to displace the oxygen for the same reason. Paper wrapping isn't airtight and wouldn't work the same way.\n\nFrom a producer's perspective, if $50 worth of plastic packaging means an extra $1000 worth of food gets sold instead of rotting in the truck or on the shelf, it's worth the price.\n\nRight now about 80% of people live in cities and there just isn't enough room in and near cities to grow enough food for all those people. Food has to be transported from the places that have enough land and water to grow it to the places where people live. And without a good market for their food in the cities, many farmers wouldn't be able to stay in business. Making transportation more efficient means a lot more of that food gets eaten instead of being thrown away. \n\nSource: Ag major in grad school.",
"The real reason is that plastic provides the best shelf life. Modern packaging is very sophisticated in directing moisture and air in or out as required, shielding the food from radiation that would degrade the food, etc. As an example, bananas would never make it to North America green if it were not for the special plastic wrap that is around them in their shipping boxes (which they are removed from as the produce clerk puts them out in the display). While people are often concerned about the apparent wastefulness of plastic packaging around food, and even greater waste is spoiled food thrown into the trash. And a lot of that plastic is recyclable and also made from recycled plastic, with the industry working to increase those stats constantly - it's not as wasteful as you might think."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | ||
3uqhj2 | why don't we ride moose? | Or other large mammals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uqhj2/eli5_why_dont_we_ride_moose/ | {
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"text": [
"Lots of people ride elephants. Its not about size. Its about moose being violent, evil, murder machines.",
"Elephants have been used as domestic animals for thousands of years. Horses can provide anything a moose could provide, but much better. But you can try to ride a bull moose if you want."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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] | |
4qxptl | why is google maps so slow and cumbersome to use when moving/zooming the map, and when did this happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qxptl/eli5_why_is_google_maps_so_slow_and_cumbersome_to/ | {
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"text": [
"Pretty sure there's an issue with your computer or settings, as mine still works flawlessly the way you say it used to.",
"Because it has to load more and more details the closer you get. Extra small side roads and traffic info are a lot to load for a large area so it gets more intricate details the closer you get. With all those extra details, it has to re-do the map every time you zoom in or out.\nYou should be able to download an area to your phone or computer so it doesn't take as long to load.",
"Google switched from the graphic-based map to one drawn via HTML elements over a year ago [video here](_URL_1_). The fact that you are seeing the tiling effect versus a 3 layer sequence (ground- > streets- > labels) and that your search bar reloads means that your graphics card cannot understand the new drawing requirements or hardware acceleration is not set up correctly. \n\nGoogle, therefore, has to switch to the (ultra-)lite mode and pre-render some of the elements for you. Microsoft has started to do this in the Win10 Maps app and will cut over the _URL_2_ version once the rendering issues are sorted on their end.\n\nThis problem isn't new and repeatedly pops up on _URL_0_ for people that use older browsers and graphics cards (one of that articles' screenshots used to be a long-deprecated Firefox version)",
"Visit this link to switch to the lite version of Google Maps (very similar to old Google Maps):\n\n(Test it first in incognito/private mode to see if it helps and if you're happy with the results)\n\n_URL_0_\n\nProblem solved!\n\n"
]
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[],
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"Change.org",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6DrfYHVcXs",
"Bing.com"
],
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"https://www.google.com/maps/?force=lite"
]
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c5qhza | does everyone have a unique voice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c5qhza/eli5_does_everyone_have_a_unique_voice/ | {
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"text": [
"Given the sheer number of people on the planet, I'd say no.\n\nEach person has a unique combination of organ shapes and neural pathways within their brain, respiratory system, mouth, and skull. All of these things contribute to how a person's voice sounds. However, humans in general tend towards a specific set of shapes, meaning that all possible human voices fall within a specific band. Furthermore, humans can only tell certain sounds apart with a finite amount of fidelity, so two voices that are ever-so-slightly different may in fact be impossible to tell apart. This means that there's a finite number of discreet voices we can tell apart (although that number is astronomically huge).\n\nBut, with 7+ billion of us on Earth, that's a lot of voices. Raw probability states that there's almost certainly at least one pair of people out there with voices that cannot be distinguished by the human ear. Throw in voice actors who are trained to make different voices, and now each person can have more than one voice, and therefore more than one possible match."
]
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[]
] | ||
2s88q7 | why are some stretch marks purple and others are a kind of silver colour? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s88q7/eli5_why_are_some_stretch_marks_purple_and_others/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnn2ai8"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"Purple ones are newer. They fade out over time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
9n3bc4 | what is the difference between a normal american public university and a public state university. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9n3bc4/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_normal/ | {
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"text": [
"There is no difference other than the name. Both are \"state\" universities in that they are supported by the state in which they are located.",
"Usually they're just two different organizations. One is the 'flagship' public university and is more research oriented, the other is usually more education oriented. Both are largely funded by the state."
]
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[],
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5sq382 | what is the difference between beer and lager | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sq382/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_beer_and_lager/ | {
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"A lager is a style of beer, in the way that blue is a type of color or beef is a type of meat. ",
"There are three different types of beer, they are categorized by how they are fermented:\n\n**Lager** - This is a beer fermented with a \"bottom fermenting\" yeast (aka lager yeast), yes the yeast is on the bottom, and yes its commonly simply known as lager yeast. This is fermented at a low temperature, generally 45-55 F degrees (~7-13 C). Lager beers are often clean and crisp beers, without huge flavor or variation. Some examples would be: Budweiser (USA), Kirin Ichiban (Japan), Hofbräu Original (Germany). For further clarity, Pilsners are lagers. All of your big name \"macro brew\" beers will be lagers.(Think Bud, Miller, Coors, Stella, that random shitty beer in 12 packs)\n\n**Ales** - Ales are the beers that have the most variety and flavor. They are \"top fermented\" beer, at a higher temp (~70F), and can be made in tons of ways as this type of yeast is much better for different flavor beers and adding lots of other stuff. Ales make up the majority of beers that aren't your big name macro brews. Some common Ales will be any IPA, such as the hoppy Ballast Point Sculpin, stouts such as yummy creamy and dark Guinness, and a brown like Newcastle. The variation for ales is insane compared to Lagers. IF you're drinking a high end or craft beers, its almost certainly an ale.\n\nThe third, and very very lesser known one is called\n\n **Lambic**: Lambics are super unique in flavor, and seriously you should try one if you haven't. Lambics are beers brewed with naturally occuring yeast, that is they literally leave the beer in the open and the natural yeasts in the air ferment the beer (In a more practical sense, you can actually make them by artificial means too, but lets ignore that for now). OK, sounds weird right? It not, its totally genius, and great. Many lambic are \"sour beers\" (but not all sour beers are lambics!). Lambics are often considered the hardest beers to make, and master, and are uncommon to produce outside of Belgium (but available for purchase of course as imports). IF you've ever heard of a \"Geuze\" beer (not: NOT \"Gose\", thats different), a \"gueze\" is a style of lambic like pilsner is a style of lager or IPA is a style of ale. Many lambics are also fruit flavored, with fruits such as cherry, raspberry, or peach. Seriously you should try one if you never have. As a slight aside, there is a lambic brewery in Brussels called [Cantillion](_URL_0_) which makes traditional air fermented lambic's in the middle of Brussels, and they are frankly considered Gods of the beer world, their beers are highly prized and highly regarded. You can't talk lambics without talking about Cantillon. If you're ever in Brussels you can go there too! It's only $5 for a tour of their place and some samples\n\nNow get drinking"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://www.cantillon.be/?lang=en"
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3ckrmt | how can shazam detect a movie based on a song? | I think I grasp the basic idea of how Shazam works via frequency hits and hashes in a database, but how does it work when the song is in a movie? For example, I was watching "The Girl Next Door" and tried to identify a song they played. From the time I pushed the Shazam button to identify the song to the time that Shazam actually identified the movie, there was no dialogue and the only observable noise was the music. Did the TV station add an additional frequency to the movie that would identify the movie instead of the song? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ckrmt/eli5_how_can_shazam_detect_a_movie_based_on_a_song/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Shazam includes the audio for most popular movies and TV shows in its database, so when you play any section of a movie or TV show - even part that just contains music or sound effects - it might still identify it.\n\nIn the case of the song from \"The Girl Next Door\", it's possible that the song it identified sounds slightly different in the movie than it does in an album. The movie may have other sound effects at the same time as the music, for example, and Shazam is picking up on that and matching the movie more closely.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
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] | |
3fqujj | why is wearing an indian headdress unacceptable cultural appropriation but dressing/acting like an irish stereotype on st. patrick's day ok? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fqujj/eli5_why_is_wearing_an_indian_headdress/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctr2e8v"
],
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"text": [
"What it comes down to is the consistently racist portrayal of Native Americans in American cinema for decades. \n\nFor many years Native Americans were displayed as extremely primitive savages, often serving as the generic bad guys for the hero to kill dozens of in Western films. These characters were often in fact caricatures of actual Native Americans, and the feathered headdress has become something of a symbol of that. It's a disrespectful parody of their heritage and culture. Compare it to Black Face for Black Americans. \n\nThe Irish don't have such an institutionalized history of racist portrayals. It helps that leprechauns aren't that big a part of Irish culture. The Irish never actually ran around dressed in all green shouting about their pots of gold. That image of Ireland is pretty much entirely an American fabrication, and as such is less rude and more silly. \n\nThat said, there is something of an issue with the Irish being constantly portrayed as alcoholics, and some are justifiably up in arms about it. "
]
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[]
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3jr1do | why is only europe being pressured to take in these "refugees" and not asia, africa, or latin america? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jr1do/eli5_why_is_only_europe_being_pressured_to_take/ | {
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"text": [
"Because Europe is the only region that has enough money to provide food, water, houses, health care, etc for millions of people.",
"From what I can tell, the vast majority of the refugees are Syrians and Iraqis. So going by this wiki page, page(_URL_0_) you can see that the of the 5 countries that have received the most refugees, four are located in Asia and one is located in Africa. \n\nIf you are asking what they aren't going to South Asia or East Asia, well I think the answer is hilariously obvious. Why would they place themselves in greater risk by trekking through hellacious terrain and war-torn regions to places far away when Europe is far closer?\n\nAs for Latin America, that is also hilariously obvious. Yes why not, they should forego the entire coastline of northern Africa and southern Europe to go to Latin America. \n\nWhy are Europeans the only ones being pressured? Well that's also hilariously untrue. Egypt, the largest Arab country, have taken in tons of refugees as well as the Levantine Arab countries and Turkey. There's a widespread sentiment among Gulf Arab citizens that their governments aren't doing nearly enough for the refugees. I suppose Europeans are being \"pressured\" because the sheer number of migrants have compromised the Schengen zone and strained the patience of the likes of Hungary, Serbia, Romani etc. countries that aren't well-equipped to handle migrants on such a scale, which is understable\n\nThis was one of the most hilariously easy ELI5 questions I've ever had the hilarious pleasure of answering. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War"
]
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3r98re | when you get into a cold shower, why do you always inhale ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r98re/eli5_when_you_get_into_a_cold_shower_why_do_you/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwm1c20"
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"score": [
11
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"text": [
"Our bodies have a [dive reflex](_URL_0_) that kicks in when our faces go into cold water.\n\nEffectively, your body is preparing to hold your breath for a long time when your face goes into cold water."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3631667"
]
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3y85l9 | what and why is mixing and mastering (music) good for? | Also, can i do it to my own music or must have someone objective?
Thanks reddit | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y85l9/eli5_what_and_why_is_mixing_and_mastering_music/ | {
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"text": [
"A good thing to try out is this mixer demo:\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd well, I know alot of bands doing their own recordings and a rough mix - most prefer an audio engineer to do the mixing and maybe even (if budget allows) a dedicated mastering engi to do the mastering.\nApparently, it can be quite hard to objectively judge and improve the sound if you yourself have passed hours / days / weeks / months writing the stuff, practicing it and recording it.\n",
"'Mixing' in this context means to mix the different channels. Every channel might represent one or more instruments/vocals/sounds. You mix them by adjusting the volume levels of each channel. \n\n'Mastering' is the whole finish of the song which is done by applying equalizers, compressors, stereo effects etc. \n\nProper mixing and mastering ensures the right mix of channels, a clean composition with no unwanted interferences of frequencies and no unwanted overdrive. \nYou want your final track to be as loud as possible but still be dynamic and not overdriven, which is achieved with a limiter/compressor. You 'normalize' the track, that means you rise the overall level so the loudest part is near 0dB. You try to get an overall loud composition without any distortions. \n\nAll in all, you get the 'right sound'. The difference between amateur tracks and a major production. \n\nYou can do the mastering without any help but you need at least a pair of proper monitors (neutral studio speakers). Test your final track on as many different speaker combinations as possible. As soon as your track sounds awesome on a regular stereo, your computer speakers, your TV, in your car, on headphones and on a mono radio - then you got it. \nProtip: Keep your mastering sessions under an hour. Your ears get used to the sound and start to gradually distort it so your result gets fucked up, which is pretty obvious when you hear it next day. ",
"Go listen to Katy Perry \"I kissed a girl\" Chris Lord Alge mix on YouTube, and then compare it to the original album version. \n\nMixers help shape the sounds... if your record is supposed to sound \"vintage\" they might add distortion and noise, if it it's supposed to be a pristine pop record, they may polish up the sounds. \n\nMixers also determine where the listeners attention is focused. Go back and listen to some New Jack Swing, you'll notice that very often the drums will be way louder than the vocals. \n\nEven though the artist's voice is often the most important thing in a record, in this case the mixer is making this choice to focus your attention foremost on the groove, and make sure the record bumps on the dance floor at the club. ",
"You can do it yourself but it takes years and years and years to get good at it and requires a lot of dedication ",
"The mixer takes all the raw ingredients given to them by the band and determines how much of each will go into the final dish. While the mixer has a basic guideline of what it should taste like, they flavour to their (or the band's, or a record label's), own taste. \n\nMastering is more like how you plate the meal. ",
"For a more ELI5 answer:\n\nThink about an awesome sandwich. Any person can put a bunch of great ingredients in and it'll taste fine, but what makes a great sandwich is putting the right ingredients with the right amounts of each. Too much mustard and even if there are other things you still have a mustard sandwich, too little and the sandwich is missing something. \n\nFor your second question: not always. Some people are great at making a sandwich(composer), some people can taste what else the sandwich needs or how to rearrange it better(producer/sound tech/arranger/orchestrator - yes all of these roles can change a piece) some people can do both, some people can't do either. \n\nEdit: first example was a producer/sound tech. Here's others \n\nPlacement of the ingredients: orchestrator. This is for a live Sound btw.\n\nArranger: the main ingredient (melody) tastes great. Keep that, but change the other ingredients (harmonies, chords, counter-melodies.\n\nSource - Classically trained musician. ",
"If you don't know what it is then you absolutely must have a professional to do it for you or your music's going to sound like balls (assuming you don't write already-balls music)."
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e59d4a | why is phone scamming so much more popular in india than other parts of the world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e59d4a/eli5_why_is_phone_scamming_so_much_more_popular/ | {
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"There are 1.3 billion people in India. So even if a small percent are doing phone scams, that adds up to a lot of people. \n\nThey have a low GDP per capita compared to other English speaking countries. So scamming represents an opportunity, where other opportunities don't exist. \n\nThey speak English, therefore they often target the US, so it makes the news more often. I'm sure there are scams in lots of countries, but a Spanish speaking country would be more likely to target Spain, so its not going to make the headlines in the US.",
"It's a holdover from the move to outsource call centers there a few decades ago. When that outsourcing became unpopular in the west, companies just closed the call center business and left the infrastructure (including call lists). India had (and to the extent that wealthy groups can pay off officials, still has) lax laws on phone fraud at the time, so old call centers were converted to scam centers by management. That's also the reason that only a few countries are targetted heavily by scam centers.\n\nThe important thing is that a lot of call center employees don't realize they're running scams until they've already completed enough transactions to be implicated in any crackdown. So, the popularity of scam centers continues despite growing negative public perception because workers don't know what they're contributing to until it's too late."
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45ie12 | how can humans successfully terraform a planet for us to live there. | will humans ever be able to live on another planet that we have artificially "created". | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45ie12/eli5_how_can_humans_successfully_terraform_a/ | {
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"First you need lots of certain algae that'll be able to actually grow there\n\nOver time, this particular algae will bloom and *ideally* cover the entire planet...\n\nThis will slowly *overtime* transform the atmosphere \n\nIt's a very slow process. eventually, you'll be able to grow bigger and bigger plants to speed up the transformation\n\nBut shit tons of algae is what gets ya going",
"Depends on what planet you want to terraform. Lets take for example the prime candidate; Mars. Due to the extremely thin atmosphere of mainly carbon dioxide, and a magnetic field a fraction of the strength of Earth's magnetic field, the first priority would be to increase atmospheric density. Researchers have been reluctant to use genetically engineered algae to convert that carbon dioxide into oxygen as there is a range of issues introducing an alien life form to a planet one which the state of life is currently unknown. One proposed method would be to systematically bombard the poles of the planet with our stockpile of thermonuclear weapons in order to melt the ice caps, increase global temperatures, and create a more habitable environment. However, complications due to fallout and contamination of resources has thus far prevented this plan from being considered. Another method would be to cover the surface in a black, radiation absorbing material which would aid in warming the planet. In regards to the issue of the planet's weak magnetic field and minimal gravity, a restart of the planet's core would instantly solve the problem. However, various technological roadblocks prevent this as we simply don't have the means to conducted such a large geoengineering project. In essence the priorities of terraforming Mars would be:\n1. Increase atmospheric Density\n2. Increase global average temperatures so that liquid water can exist.\n3. Increase magnetic field and gravity via geoengineering \n4. Convert the carbon dioxide atmosphere into one suitable for aerobic life forms. ",
"We could just move Venus so that it share's Earth's orbit around the sun. Eventually it will cool off."
]
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5otbjv | is it true that the solar storm as powerful as the carrington event would destroy all of the power grids in the world (or most of them)? don't we have any warning systems? would this long-running nationwide power outage kill us? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5otbjv/eli5_is_it_true_that_the_solar_storm_as_powerful/ | {
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"It takes nine minutes for sunlight to reach the earth, and its traveling at the speed of light. There isn't any way to set up a warning system, and even if you could, it would buy you minutes. Modern Humans have been around for 200,000 years. We've relied on electricity for about 130. I think we'll be all right."
]
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[]
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4c8ukv | why is formal writing in english the way it is? | Formal writing, to me, seems like a pretentious attempt to preserve English as is spoken and written by the "intellectual elite" instead of allowing it to evolve and change as time goes on. We don't speak with thee and thou anymore, so English has changed a lot, so why does "formal writing" even exist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c8ukv/eli5why_is_formal_writing_in_english_the_way_it_is/ | {
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"I'm not sure what you mean by \"formal writing\". I guess I'm thinking like academic writing--which is the most formal that I can think of. But you wouldn't use \"thee\" and \"thou\" in an academic paper.\n\nCan you give us an example of where you've seen people writing today, but writing like they're back in time?",
"What's interesting is that your post is written in relatively formal English. It may not exactly be appropriate for a business letter, for example, but there's no way you'd have said any of that if you'd been talking to me face to face.\n\nFormal English comes in many different forms, so it does depend what you think of as \"formal\". But it does evolve over time, although it's always a few steps behind colloquial English. For example, when I was at school (this is going back to the 1970s), we were told never to write contractions (like \"can't\" or \"doesn't\") except in dialogue. Nowadays, this rule no longer applies in most cases -- you'll notice I'm using quite a lot of contractions here.\n\nIt's important to remember that written language and spoken language are actually quite different. In normal conversation, spoken language is a two-way thing: the speaker is constantly getting feedback from the other person, so can instantly tell if there's any miscommunication. If you were to secretly record a couple of your friends talking and then tried to transcribe it all, you'd probably find it hard to figure out where each sentence begins and ends.\n\nFor example, if, instead of writing your post, you'd talked to me in person about it, it would have looked very different. Here's what might have happened -- the bits in parentheses are my reactions:\n\n > I just thought (yeah?) | formal writing | you know? (like what?) | you know, like letters and (aha) books and stuff (gotcha) | okay so why do we have it? | (how d'you mean?) | doesn't it seem to you | I mean, look | see, I think it's just it's an attempt to preserve the English of the the | uh | the intellectual elite (oh right) | now | why not just | you know | why doesn't it evolve and change (I see) as time goes on?\n\nIn a spontaneous conversation, all of that makes sense. Written down, it's a jumble of words. This is because in writing, you don't have the real-time feedback of the other person, and you also don't have a way to indicate things like intonation (vitally important in speech). So in writing, you need to be a lot more careful with your grammar and the whole structure of your piece, so that there can be no misunderstanding.",
"It's called 'standard english'.\n\nBefore the printing press, spelling, grammar and punctuation weren't standardized. The same word could be spelled multiple different ways in the same document and were mostly spelled phonetically. Given the variations in accent and dialect (and homophones) this made the written word confusing.\n\nfor egzampl this sentns mite be dificlt for yoo to reed espshuly if i rite it as a wal or teckst with no punkchooashun so yoo downt now wen i chanj topic or stuf layk dat.\n\nBasically, formal English exists so we all write the same way following the same rules so we can understand each other better.\n\n\n"
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1ps8n6 | although there are countless diseases that kill many humans each year, why particular ones like breast cancer and aids have been put at such a higher awareness level? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ps8n6/eli5_although_there_are_countless_diseases_that/ | {
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"HIV/AIDS because it's sexual transmitted, very serious and is/was a relatively new illness. The whole easy-going sex with everybody 60's was brought down a lot by the sexual diseases it promoted and HIV/AIDS was the top of the list of things you didn't want.\n\nBreast cancer? Good marketing I suppose. Not the only one but one of the cancers you can fairly easily self-examine for without any real medical training."
]
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122znc | why are some lesbians attracted to girls with masculine features? | Physically and behaviorally. Same question in the context of gay men who prefer effeminate men. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/122znc/eli5_why_are_some_lesbians_attracted_to_girls/ | {
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"What about women who like manly looking men who occasionally act effeminate?\n\nSexual preference is a weird topic, and not easily understood even by experts.",
"A large part of it is a social construct.\n\nHomosexuals need some way to advertise their sexuality to other homosexuals. However, this can be socially, or even physically dangerous. So they affect mannerism that are slightly outside the mainstream, but not so far that they give themselves away.\n\nSometimes these affectations gross traditional gender lines, as in the case of your stereotypical \"fairy\" or \"bull dyke\".\n\nBut sometimes they do not. There is nothing terribly feminine about a leather daddy or a bear, nor is there anything masculine about a lipstick lesbian. ",
"I've wondered this!\n\nYes, it's a slight generalisation etc. etc.\n\nBut there are quite a few women who come out and then cut there hair short and wear formless clothes, and quite a few men who come out and start slim down, moisturise and wear hot pants.\n\nI'm a 21st century boy and couldn't care less what people do with themselves if it doesn't represent any danger, but I've always thought it must be self-defeating:\n\nLesbians like girls and must therefore want girls who like girls to find them attractive... but a fair few make themselves more masculine.\n\nGay men like men and must therefore want men who like men to find them attractive... but quite a few seem to come across as very effeminate.\n\nI don't know if it's just that these people subscribe to a different subculture where these appearances are the height of fashion, rather than an actual innate attraction. Attraction has always been fluid and based on the times: the effeminate 'dandy' look was popular at one time, being fat was apparently hot stuff in 1600s, and apparently ancient Greeks preferred men with small penises. Apparently. I vaguely remember reading those facts somewhere, I've not asked any ancient Greeks or Tudor women. Even recently there's been a shift in what women find ideal in the UK; I've read it's gone from sleek athletic looks like David Beckham to more rough-and-ready looks like Tom Hardy and some other guy who's well-muscled.\n\nThat's my tuppence worth anyway. I hate that I always say \"... I read somewhere that...\" and can never remember a source."
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66v6ie | under what authority and to what limit can the us go into foreign countries and seize non-us citizens for crimes against the us | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66v6ie/eli5_under_what_authority_and_to_what_limit_can/ | {
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"Strictly speaking, they can't. Such things are only possible with special treaties between 2 countries. Usually those include that the US can ask government XYZ to extradite a person. If they agree, they either bring the person to the US, or allow to US to go there and get him. If not, nothing happens, such is the case with Assange *(Ecuador)* and Snowden *(Russia)*.",
"I'm wondering if OP meant more along the serious criminal lines, like when the US went into Pakistan and killed Bin Ladden without any heads up or warning ",
"Under the authority of \"who's going to stop us?\"\n\nThere is no authority in international relations other than the idea that you're only as good as your word, and the idea that might makes right. The UN has about as many teeth as a newborn puppy, and what few it *does* have require a UN security council vote, which the US (and Russia, and China) can just veto as need be."
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2fh9uf | why we use different multiplication signs in school. | For instance, in Elementary school we use "x" for multiplying, yet when in Middle/High school we use a period or dot for multiplying. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fh9uf/eli5_why_we_use_different_multiplication_signs_in/ | {
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"This is extremely simple. In elementary school you wouldn't have been dealing with any algebra, like maybe long division at the higher end. Here, using x isn't confusing or problematic as there are no algebraic x's to muddle up.\n\nIn higher schools you deal with algebra, usually x and y, so using x can result in one of your simplifications or additions destroying an operation, ruining the answer. So we use a dot, Because it doesn't look like an x. That's it. ",
"In basic math they both work, the shift in mid/high school is because algebra is introduced and a multiplication cross looks a lot like the letter X, especially when hand written. Dot or brackets are used to avoid the confusion, and on a keyboard * is usually used. \r\r\rIn university level math they mean different things. In multi dimensional math a dot product and a cross product are two very different types of multiplication. And asterisk * star kinda shape also means yet multiplication like operation called convolution. "
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2fs1d9 | why is it that high school society stereotypically outcast the nerds | As a nerd, and a bit of a curious one at that, I've always wondered why we often get the short stick in high school society. Now I wouldn't exactly call myself an outcast, I actually have an enormous circle of friends around me (I'm actually outroverted, and rather social among everyone i come across), although at one time or another I have found myself being socially ostracized simply (from what I can tell) because I act differently (I'm weird and I love it), and have different interests than others around me (I'm really into anything and everything cartoon related, and am a hardcore gamer). Anyways I was hoping that I could get an explanation why we can sometimes be subjected to being a outcast in our immediate high school society. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fs1d9/eli5why_is_it_that_high_school_society/ | {
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"Maybe because the other people feels \"intimidate\" of nerds or a bit jealous.",
"I'm sure this isn't a straight forward answer - but you probably answered some of this yourself:\n\n* Weird\n* Confident about being weird\n* Different (interests)\n\nIt seems like most people in high school - just like most areas of life - want to look cool and fit in. Nerds don't typically look cool or fit in. They stand out. They're the opposite of what most high school kids either are or at least strive to be: popular and like everyone else. It's cool to not give a fuck, or at least act like you don't. Nerds don't do that either. Nerds follow general school rules but ignore pretty much every bullshit rule other kids create. And frequently, like in your case, they're smug about it. You were happy not fitting in. This angers the other people working so hard to climb to the top of the high school social ladder. How can you be so happy even though you've climbed nowhere - or at least lower than some - on the high school coolness hierarchy? \n\nIn high school I took model making and bowling **as a sport** - and I only took bowling because there was an arcade there that had various Street Fighter and Tekken machines. I wasn't a nerd, per se, but I never made an attempt to fit in and I thought everything I did was awesome. From a high school perspective, it wasn't. And looking back, yeah, I'm pretty sure a lot of people saw me as a weirdo. But those people got really ugly.",
"\"Nerds\" spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge, studying for school, and playing video games. These things typically aren't very social. Where as the rest of the high school population tend to play sports, hang out with friends, and go to parties. This leaves the \"nerds\" behind their classmates in terms of social skills and culture. This forces them to be behind in current trends and not be able to relate to their peers.",
"Because you can't stand up for yourself.\n\nSomeone calls you a name, what do you do? Tell them to stop? What if they don't? A lot of people would probably fight the person. Nerd can't fight, and that's why they get pushed around."
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boq80t | why sometimes some coins are worth more than their original value? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/boq80t/eli5_why_sometimes_some_coins_are_worth_more_than/ | {
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"Two reasons. First, because, sometimes, the value of the metal in the coin becomes higher than the coin itself. That's why U.S. pennies are not made out of pure copper anymore. Second, and more importantly, because people are interested in coins and collect them. Rarity comes into play. I have a mason jar full of wheat pennies (U.S., 1909-59) that is probably worth 5x the face value of the coins themselves (about $50 instead of $10) but, if I had a 1944 steel wheat penny, that alone would be worth approx. $100,000 because only 35 were issued. If you are a dedicated coin collector and have the money to spare, a 1944 steel wheat penny is something you'd pay dearly for."
]
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[]
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214aku | does low tolerance to alcohol make one more or less prone to alcoholism? | It's often said that ethnicities with higher alcohol tolerance are less prone to alcoholism.
Yet I've also heard that because East Asians have low tolerance, they don't develop alcoholism as easily because they just get sick instead of getting drunk. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/214aku/eli5_does_low_tolerance_to_alcohol_make_one_more/ | {
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"text": [
"I don't think it matters that much. Generally speaking, women have lower alcohol tolerance than men, but women aren't more prone to become alcoholics, I think."
]
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[]
] | |
6hwdgy | how do the textures in our irises develop? | Why do some people's look smooth ([Example](_URL_1_)) while others are littered with loads of tiny fibrous branches ([Example](_URL_0_))? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hwdgy/eli5how_do_the_textures_in_our_irises_develop/ | {
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"Hello,\n\nOphthalmology technician here. I can't tell you exact science, but from my experience the feature you are talking about largely has to do with color. The fibrous branches are the fibrous vascular ( fiber and blood vessels) layer followed underneath by pigment epithelium ( pigment containing cells. If you look at high def photos all irises are fibrous. the fibers connect to muscles that control dilation. As you see with the lighter blue eye, their is more contrast allowing you to see the fibers clearly. This is due to the fact that blue eyes are not due to pigment but the scattering of light that enters the clear stroma fribrovascular layer. While in the darker brown eye there is pigment that blocks the fine fibers and creates less contrast to see them. Note the similar ring structure and anatomy in the high def photos below.\n\nTLDR: Blue eyes aren't blue due to pigment. They are clear and much like water, light scattering creates its color. The clearness allows you to see the rough fibrovascular layer. giving it it's texture appearance. Brown eyes have pigment that blocks the fine details and hinders the contrast to see them clearly.\n \n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"The brown iris you linked has what are called prominent contraction furrows. These furrows, or folds, are due to the contractile nature of the iris. In dimly lit environments, the iris dilates to allow more light to reach the retina. Conversely, bright light causes the iris to constrict. Other visible features of the iris are the crypts of Fuchs, pupillary frill, nevi (freckles), and of course color. \n\nWhile color is genetically determined, the morphological characteristics/\"texture\" of the iris are considered stochastic, or randomly determined. \n\nSource: Eye doctor"
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"http://www.drgaelriverz.com/images/anxiety_tetanic-brown.jpg"
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"http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/12/12/article-2246888-1679CAFA000005DC-830_470x632.jpg"
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91rkxf | how did ancient egyptians carve/create such smooth and detailed stone structures? | Even in the early days of ancient egypt we have found these large urns that have perfect smooth curves and they were obviously durable enough to last thousands of years. How did they create these statues and other detailed masterpieces out of stone without modern tools? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91rkxf/eli5_how_did_ancient_egyptians_carvecreate_such/ | {
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" > How did they create these statues and other detailed masterpieces out of stone without modern tools?\n\nThey had modern hand tools. The pyramids were built a few hundred years into the Egyptian bronze age. They would have had hammers, and chisels, and wooden forms for hand sanding.\n\nThey also had master craftsmen employed by the state. When your full time job is making stuff for the state, you can make some pretty nice stuff",
"the original finish of monumental stone carvings would have had several thousand years of sandblasting every time the wind blew.\n\nas for smaller works inside, polishing methods include fine grit, like ash, or fine sand, suspended in fat or tallow and rubbed on the surface long enough, produces anything up to a mirror shine."
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3ukzgl | why do people still use paper receipt in shops and not invent receipt card, which we could use in all shops? | Like bonus cards, you'd just swipe them and you'd have electric receipt for everything you bought. What are the cons in this and why has it not happened already?
Or am I thinking before my time and just gave someone business idea of a lifetime (call me) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ukzgl/eli5_why_do_people_still_use_paper_receipt_in/ | {
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"The truth is that if you use a credit/debit card, there's already a record and you don't need a paper receipt at all. Even if you didn't, any large store (think Target) will have a record of your purchase - at least enough to know a product was bought there. \n\nYou can also you your phone for payments nowadays, and that's likely to get more and more popular. When that happens receipts can just get emailed directly to you."
]
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2j9tdn | we've all seen it in movies; when someone's throat is slit, what actually happens? what causes the death? is having your throat slit always fatal? | In the title. I was always curious about this, especially whether or not it's always 100% fatal. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j9tdn/eli5_weve_all_seen_it_in_movies_when_someones/ | {
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"It'll be a combination of bleeding out if your jugular is cut, and that you can't breathe, so you slowly asphyxiate. Blood entering your windpipe doesn't help your breathing either.",
"It's not always fatal. Clint Malarchuk (sp?) was a goalie for the Buffalo Sabres in the 80s that had his throat slashed by an ice skate and he survived. ",
"Usually you die of blood loss. No blood going to your brain? You'll die. It;s not always a fatal thing though [Here's](_URL_0_) the link to a hockey player who's throat was cut open. [Here's](_URL_1_) the video of it happening. ",
"As long as the don't cut one of the arteries on the side of your neck and you can get medical attention farely quick, then you can survive. But if they cut the artery, then most likely they'll die of blood loss and/or suffocation.",
"Your neck contains the blood vessels that take blood and oxygen from your heart, to your brain, and back again. There are two arteries called carotid arteries and two veins called jugular veins running up to your brain along your neck. If one or more of these blood vessels in your neck is cut your brain quickly becomes deprived of oxygen, you pass out, and you are dead within the next few minutes. "
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Malarchuk",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh_UN3RuoN8"
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22lp7k | why is "eye-witness" testimony enough to sentence someone to life in prison? | It seems like every month we hear about someone who's [spent half their life](_URL_1_) in prison based on nothing more than eye witness testimony. [75% of overturned convictions](_URL_0_) are based on eyewitness testimony, and psychologists agree that memory is [unreliable at best](_URL_2_). With all of this in mind, I want to know (for violent crimes with extended or lethal sentences) ***why are we still allowed to convict based on eyewitness testimony alone?*** Where the punishment is so costly and the stakes so high shouldn't the burden of proof be higher?
Tried to search, couldn't find answer after brief investigation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22lp7k/eli5_why_is_eyewitness_testimony_enough_to/ | {
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"There is no evidence you could give such that the trial would be halted and the defendant was automatically found guilty, it's all down to what the jury decides.",
"Juries are made up of the same sorts of people that get eyewitness testimony wrong.",
"because the people that condemn you are the jury and they still think their vision is reliable. ",
"IANAL:\n\n > why are we still allowed to convict based on eyewitness testimony alone?\n\nThat's actually a misnomer - we do not convict solely on eyewitness testimony (in the US). It must first be decided by a Grand Jury that the defendant had both an opportunity and motivation to perform the crime; they determine the validity of the accusations, and whether or not to indict.\n\nMoreover, the worth of eyewitness testimony is entirely dependent on the circumstances of the case and their trustworthiness to the jury. If the jury believes, even a little bit, that the eyewitness is lying or unable to accurately recall, then their testimony is greatly diminished. Really the only time that eyewitness testimony can *decide a case* as you are implying above, is when there is literally NO other evidence available to corroborate the stories of the defense. Something else to keep in mind is the \"CSI Effect\" - where juries are less likely to convict unless there is DNA evidence a la \"CSI\"; they're less likely to convict with only eyewitness testimony.\n\nThe examples you cite were generally in the past, before a lot of forms of testing were available, juries were more likely to be racially biased, and there was a greater presumption of \"someone has to pay for this horrible crime, ___ says it's this person.\"",
"[Here](_URL_0_) is a pretty good documentary on the subject. It is absolutely true that eyewitness testimony is faulty at best, but for some reason, people are more prone to believe something that confirms their biases than something backed by evidence",
"I did 18 months in jail because of eye witness testimony. They said she positively identified me. In court, when the DA asked to point who she \"saw\" did the burglary, she cried on the stand an pointed directly at me! \n\nMind you, it wasn't me. The cops came to the scene about an hour or so later an I happen to be in the building going to a friend's apartment in a large tenement building. They asked her if it was my friends an I, an she said yes. All 3 innocent us got booked and our lives forever changed. ",
"Current law student, Eye-witness testimony does not hold the same weight today in courts as it used to. As a law student we are taught that of all types of evidence eye-witness testimony is the least reliable. You would never be sentenced to life in prison solely on a witnesses testimony now a days, there would have to be other forms of evidence\n\nedit: OK maybe never wasn't the correct term, but it would be EXTREMELY unlikely\n\nEdit: also I don't think any prosecutor would take on a case with nothing but an individual's eye witness testimony, not unless an entire group or crowd of people witnessed it\n\nEdit: Many have brought up the fact that in some cases eye-witness testimony is paramount, which is true, but when I say \"least reliable\" form I mean in a broad, overall sense. Obviously we can't break it down case by case by case.",
"Law student in Sweden. They aren't enough usually.",
"People are convicted by juries, and juries find eyewitness testimony compelling.\n\nLess direct evidence, like DNA, is abstract. You average juror just doesn't understand DNA well enough to have a gut feeling about its accuracy...they have to trust what they guys in the lab coats say. \n\nBut if someone says they saw something, that is something every juror can relate to directly, and for good or ill, they put a lot of weight on those sorts of accounts.",
"Forensic Science student:\nAs other have said in, it is highly unlikely that you will get convicted based on eyewitness testimony alone. You would at need at least one other piece of evidence. That said, the \"other\" piece can be CCTV footage of a guy that looks like you, you getting arrested near the site without a good alibi, and stuff like that. \nI feel like this is more of a US-based question. It is true that courts sometimes turn into a theatre with both parties trying to win the Jurors' favour, and eyewitnesses tend to be really useful for that. \n\nIn the UK, a person cannot even be convicted solely on DNA evidence, let alone eyewitness testimony. ",
"There are two basic types of evidence presented in criminal trials: direct and circumstantial. Ordinarily, direct evidence is eye-witness testimony. Circumstantial evidence is composed of facts that require a jury's inference to determine a person's guilt. People tend to give more credence to direct evidence. Though, as you point out, eye-witness testimony isn't without issues. However, no testimony is perfect.\nOddly enough, the stakes of a criminal sentence don't matter. Thus, whether you're on trial for murder or stealing a pencil, the rules of evidence are the same.\nThe overall issue for the jury is whether the prosecution proved their case beyond a Reasonable Doubt. Obviously, reasonable doubt is a highly contested term of art that differs from person to person. Using \"just eye witness\" testimony is usually not enough. Most cases involve a combination of both direct and circumstantial evidence. The combination of the two can create an incredibly compelling case for the prosecution.\n",
"While it is true eye witness testimony can be valuable, many people make up false memories and believe them. In one of my Psychology classes in college, I remember the teacher showing a little clip. She told us to pay attention too, because we would be asked questions. One of the questions was what color hat did the thief have. The correct answer was no hat, but many people said blue, red, in the choices. This was simply after 5 minutes. Imagine how telling the police something the next day is. Very unreliable sometimes. ",
"In the US, juries are the determiners of fact. They are also mostly removed from sentencing decisions, so when a conviction comes through, the court takes the conviction as fact and acts accordingly.",
"Only if you promise not to lie while holding your hand on a book of fairy tales. ",
"If nothing else, the [selective attention test](_URL_0_) should give most people pause.\n",
"I served on a jury in a murder trial a few years ago. The judge explicitly instructed us that (1) eyewitness testimony can be unreliable and we should not give it extra consideration; and (2) police testimony is not \"better\" than other witness testimony, but that police officers are better at being witnesses because they do it all the time.\n",
"Whether something is \"enough\" to overcome the prosecutorial burden-of-proof is just a matter for the jury. I'm not aware of any court system in the world that *requires* \"X\" type of evidence to convict someone. \n\nIn theory you could have a single sworn statement from a blind guy, and convict, if the jury believes it (and if on appeal the judge doesn't find that no reasonable juror could have found the testimony credible).\n\nIf it helps, jurors today are much more reluctant to convict for murders in circumstantial cases without DNA evidence. Evidently the CSI shows, etc., have made jurors think that recoverable DNA is at every crime scene.",
"I'd just like to point out that without more context, it's fallacious to infer a problem with eye-witness testimony based on the percentage of overturned convictions that were originally anchored by eye-witness testimony, without knowing either what percentage of all convictions were anchored by eye-witness testimony as opposed to other types of evidence or what percentage of all cases are overturned.\n\nExample as to point one: the reliability of eye-witness testimony as compared to other types of evidence. If 95% of convictions are anchored by eyewitness testimony, and 5% are anchored by something else [Ed. Note: completely made up and almost certainly untrue numbers used for illustration], then if all evidence was equally reliable, you'd expect 95% of overturned convictions to have originally been anchored on eye-witness testimony. If 75% of overturned convictions were anchored on eye-witness testimony means, that would mean is is MORE reliable than other types of evidence because it's rate of overturning was lower than it's rate of use.\n\nExample as to point 2: the actual failure rate. If you have 1,000 convictions, 500 anchored upon eye-witness testimony and 500 anchored on other types of evidence, and you have 4 convictions overturned, 3 of which were originally anchored on eye-witness testimony then while a 75% failure rate means that it is a LESS reliable form of evidence than the other types, 3 overturned convictions out of 500 is actually a pretty good rate and you can certainly argue that it's still a reliable form of evidence.\n\nMy pedantic points aside: **I totally agree that eye-witness testimony is problematic and there is a ton of social science backing that up,** which has been linked in OP and other's posts. Also the Innocence Project is awesome and if I were a better person I would try and be a public defender or criminal defense lawyer or try and keep the system honest, but that is wicked depressing and I don't have the stomach for it.",
"You should look up the Loftus psychology studies on eyewitness testimony and memory influence",
"Because there are too many shitty law schools and shitty defense lawyers. \n\nFirst of all, anyone can get into law school these days, the standards are a complete joke. \n\nSecond, public defenders make shit so it generally only attracts the bottom of the barrel. I only know one person in my graduating class who actually wanted to be a public defender. Prosecutors don't make a ton but it is seen as more prestigious and there are more opportunities to lateral into U.S. Attorney or private practice where you make bank. \n\nMore directly on point, you are allowed to convict based on the beyond any reasonable doubt standard. It's the fault of the jury if they rely on bad eyewitness testimony. \n\nIt's the role of the prosecutor to elicit the testimony, and it's the job of the defense attorney to discredit it. \n\nEDIT: There are many excellent public defenders offices, I know Brooklyn's is excellent, so I'm not disparaging them all.",
"And not to lessen someones testimony, but attorneys are skilled in getting people to say things they don't mean, or to twist what they say in to meaning something else. It's all the questions they ask (or don't ask) and the way they ask them or the infamous \"leading the witness\".",
"For some crimes, eye witness testimony is often the only evidence. Although if it were my choice, I would personally still favor fewer false convictions at the expense of a lower conviction rate, I don't think most people feel this way, especially since many such crimes are emotionally charged in nature (i.e., armed robbery, assault, rape)",
"First, please note I'm not a law student anymore, but a practicing attorney. I have a limited, but non-trivial, history working in criminal law, on both sides of the aisle.\n\nI think what you are missing is that the constitution guarantees the right to a trial by jury, and the way that jury trials, and the surrounding law, have evolved over the centuries, is that you can give a jury instructions, but you *cannot* pry into their thought process. So the reason that people get convinced on eye-witness evidence is because 5, 6, 11 or 12 other people want to convict. It's that simple.\n\n*Preventing* a jury from ruling the way it wants would be a fantastically terrible thing - jury nullification is a real thing, for a good reason, and the opposite is quite true as well - sometimes a jury will convict on scanty evidence because they are pretty damn convinced that the defendant is a shit-bag. Whether you agree with this or not is irrelevant - try to construct a rule that says \"juries cannot convict only on eyewitness evidence\" and then play out the possibilities. It's damn near impossible, and would be the subject for absurd abuse at the hands of every shitty, two-cent defense attorney in the country. \n\nIt's more important that the integrity of the jury system not be tampered with, and that juries are allowed to rule as they see fit, after trial, and after instruction, without further interference by the judge or the legislature. \n\nYou won't find an \"article\" on why we are \"allowed\" to keep doing this, because it is a basic tenet of the legal system: the deliberation process is sacred, and interference with the jury process is among the graver sins in the court system, arguably even worse than murder. ",
"The real reason potentially, that I don't think I've seen here yet (and apologies if my thread search is suck ) is \"because Vikings\".\n\nMany of the concepts of todays court law is based on the concepts handed down to us from the ancient scandinavians and northern germanic tribes that grew to prominance after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west during the migration period. It all comes down to taking and giving of Oaths.\n\nEssentially, an eye-witness is swearing an oath that what they say is truth. The swearing of oaths has been a central tenet of northern germanic civilisation since before records could account. \n\nThere are other facets of court law that spring from this common background - trial by jury is essentially what is left of the islandic Thing in western society. The bringing of witnesses to swear an oath and give testimony on your behalf. \n\nIt occurs to me that the big stick of yesteryear was the fate an Oath Breaker would have after death. No Valhalla for you. You get to go to the Frozen Wastes of Hel's dominion in Nilfheim, to be rip to shreds by the Corpse Ripper, instead of being welcomed by sheild brothers and foes in the Fest Hall. \n\nToday if you lie on the stand you go to Jail, get 3 squares a day, access to some gym equipment and sometimes free College Education. So yeah, there's that... \n\nTL;DR because tradition, likely from our Viking overlords",
"Becuase it is still fairly unknown by the public that our memory is terrible and the way it works literally depends on how we alter it. A super abridged summary of how our memory works is that we memorize and recall like computers, recording, breaking down ,storing and re-assembling the memory. The problem is that only the important things are stored in our working memory, like when watching a lecture. The unimportant stuff, like walking to a lecture are put into our subconscious, which is much harder to recall info from. Sadly most eyewitness reports are in the latter as events happen and end fast before a person can calm down and focus. We only remember a fraction of what actually happened and we recall even less. All the holes in a recollection are filled by what you think should be there or something you made up to complete the memory. \nThere are countless ways a memory can be altered when being recalled by outside forces. If shown a line up of suspects and asked to point out the perpetrator, the person will pick the one who looks most like him and then reconstruct their memory to fit his description. When people are shown a video of a car collision then asked to remember the car \"crash\" or \"accident\", there is a 20mph difference in people's descriptions. Our brain is literally designed to automatically fill or compensate for any gaps. It's not just with memory, look up the \"laws gestalt and perception\". People mistake memory as fact and then the recollection of a suspect takes on a life of it's own that cannot be proven or dis proven. This was a super abidged explanation of the top of my and I haven't studied memory in a year so if I made any errors please correct or expand.",
"As stated before by many, some cases do hinge solely on eye-witness testimony. Eye-witness testimony is generally admissible. However, admissibility of evidence is only one part of the equation. Evidence is also assigned \"weight.\" It is up to the jury (or judge in the case of a bench trial) to determine the weight of the evidence. Put another way, the evidence's probative value. Of course, it is always up to the defense attorney to put on an expert witness discussing the inherent problems with eye-witness testimony. This expert testimony could help reduce the value of the evidence in the eyes of the jury. \n\nOverall, I would hope before a prosecutor decides to try the case that he would find corroborating evidence that would tend to confirm the testimony. ",
"In Oregon, it's not.",
"Trial lawyer here. We have a jury system. At its heart the jury system is an effort to tap into the [wisdom of the crowd](_URL_0_). The idea is that 12 unaffiliated, disinterested people will hear all the evidence and determine an accurate outcome democratically, by reaching consensus. If they cannot reach a consensus despite being ordered to make their best efforts, the case results in a hung jury and a mistrial. Typically those are re-tried or a settlement/plea bargain is reached.\n\nI'm a civil lawyer. Plaintiffs in civil cases have to prove their case by the preponderance of the evidence, meaning (as I tell juries) that they must show they were damaged and that their version of the truth is 'more likely than not'.\n\nIn a criminal trial the standard is 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' That doesn't mean beyond all doubt or beyond any doubt, just beyond a *reasonable* doubt. In other words the jury needs to be convinced that the evidence is so overwhelming that no other possible sequence of events could possibly be more likely or even close to as likely.\n\nObviously that doesn't completely rule out all other possibilities. And when you have a human there who is dead certain they saw such-and-such running out of the liquor store, that can be very convincing. The truth of the matter is that we can never have enough objective evidence--hard papers, videotapes, surveillance, and the like--to completely do away with relying on simple human judgment and recollection. And you wouldn't want to. Abolish eyewitness testimony and you'd either have to live in Orwell's 1984 or you'd have criminals walking free willy-nilly.\n\nTl; dr: there are very good reasons for the imperfect system we have, and what looks like a \"better\" idea would have very unfortunate consequences.",
"If I were innocent, I'd never take a trial by jury over a judge. Well, would depend on the judge I suppose, but unlikely.\n\nIf I were guilty, I'd want a jury. Most people are fucking stupid, and your chances of having stupid fucking people increase when you have 12 instead of 1. ",
"Have you ever done a fingerprint analysis? Have you ever done a hair analysis? Have you ever compared time-stamped ATM receipts to see which ones might have been faked? No?\n\nHave you ever seen a guy then remembered him later? Me too!! And so have members of juries.\n\nRemember, juries are just average people -- and get *easily* confused by things. Juries credit eyewitness testimony highly because it make sense and is familiar, and because people wildly overestimate their own ability to remember. (\"*I* certainly would be able to recall the face of a guy who robbed me...\"). People also wildly overestimate their ability to judge when someone is lying.\n\nAlso, for a long time, until the '80s and '90s or later depending on jurisdiction, you weren't even allowed to introduce expert evidence to challenge generally the reliability of eye-witness testimony. Courts believed it was the jury's role to decide the reliability of witnesses. So even if you had the world's most preeminent expert on memory ready to testify that eye-witnesses are wrong half the time, no matter how certain they feel, the judge would refuse to hear it. (It didn't help that prosecutors generally push against anything that makes securing convictions harder.)\n\nThankfully reforms are happening, but the law moves slowly. Hopefully, one day every state's pattern jury instructions will contain a section stating that warns jurors that eye-witness testimony, though probative, should not be dispositive on its own or outweigh physical evidence, and requires certain procedures to be valuable (such as not showing the victim the accused until he is placed in an impartial array).",
"Because to the jury it means something. \n\nA good attorney will address this and examine the witness and search for holes to reduce his credibility. \n\nHopefully, the attorney does a good enough job to convince the jury to deliberate beyond the testimony of a single individual. ",
"Current practicing lawyer here.\n\nYour question is \"why are we allowed\", not \"how likely is it\" as others have answered. In some sense, you could also ask your question as, \"why can we convict based on a fingerprint alone?\" or \"why can we convict based on a DNA sample alone?\". The answer is the standard is \"beyond a reasonable doubt\" and there is no rule that says the prosecutor needs at least X discrete exhibits of evidence in order to meet that burden. A single piece of evidence, of any sort, could be enough to meet that burden. Maybe a single video tape, maybe a single DNA sample, or maybe a single eyewitness.\n\nEyewitness testimony is evidence, and the fact finder (almost always a jury in a criminal case) can make its decision based on the evidence. Eyewitness testimony, as a matter of law, is no better or worse than a footprint or security camera footage of the scene. So, if someone says eyewitness testimony \"has less weight\", that would be incorrect. \n\nIt is worth bearing in mind that the fact finder can give whatever weight to the evidence it likes. The fact finder mind find a witness very credible or totally unreliable. This is why opposing counsel will often attack the credibility of the testifying witness.\n\nIf you ask my opinion, I think the fallibility of human memory makes it embarrassing that it even allowed in court, but it is so we have to deal with it.",
"This may not be what you're after, but in English law there is a specific set of principles to cover this. [Turnbull Guidelines](_URL_0_) are a set of rules for judges when dealing with eye-witness testimony - particularly when the case depends wholly or substantially on that testimony. Essentially the judge has to warn the jury that eye-witnesses can be pretty unreliable, and that they should consider the circumstances of the observation (such as the time observed, distance, visibility, time since it happened and so on; there's a mnemonic we had to know as law students).\n\nBut, unfortunately, for quite a few crimes eye-witness testimony is all there is to go on.\n\nThere are some more details about Identification evidence in English law [here](_URL_1_) from our Crown prosecutor.",
"I was held up at gunpoint by two guys on a very popular running trail in a major metropolitan area. 630 AM, Daylight. \n\nWhen I was taken down to the station for a photo lineup, they tell you that you have to be 100% sure for an identification. They showed me 6 pictures and I was 99% sure he was #2, even though the picture was several years old and some pretty major things had changed with his appearance. When I told the officer .. she told me I had to be 100% sure. So I declined to officially identify but told the detectives afterwards that he was the guy.\n\nEvidently, these guys had pulled a string of armed robberies on civilians, often with battery. One of the other victims (who they had hit eight hours earlier, one mile away) had her purse stolen and tossed. When it was recovered, they found a print inside her empty wallet. From #2.\n\nFast forward a year .. i am called to identify #2 at trial. I am the only one .. out of 10+ victims, who is willing to identify. #2 is a black man with tattoos outside both eyes and gold front teeth. When I take the stand, I am looking at him and he has this look on his face. So weird .. combination of pleading and resignation. He knew that I knew who he was. \n\nAfterwards, the DA told me that my testimony was the thing that closed it. They had forensics, incriminating facebook posts, confession to being there. If that jury hadn't heard the identification, they probably would have let him go.\n\nDuring punishment, his criminal record comes out. They were gang members, high on PCP, looking for another fix. He confesses to the whole thing. 20+ years.\n\nI don't disagree that standalone identification should not be used as the only evidence to convict. But I do think that identification is taken VERY seriously by LE, the justice system and .. most importantly .. the ones who are called to identify. \n\nIt is not fun at all. NO-ONE wants to get it wrong.",
"Because there are 12 jurors evaluating the testimony and if 12 people can't see through bullshit, it must not be bullshit.\n\nWe build our society on the basis that all men are free, equal, and right-thinking - that is to say, they will tell the truth and have a vested interest in seeing justice done. The truth serves justice, so if they will testify under oath it is outright disrespectful not to believe them. ",
"You say this and yet I know for a fact that several people in my local area have contacted the police seeing someone repeatedly commit crimes (breaking and entering etc) and even when the police say 'yeah we are looking into this person anyway' they won't do anything because there's 'no proof'. I'm in the UK.",
"It's not. It's nearly always used as [corroborating evidence.](_URL_0_)\n\nIf you get the chance, you should watch 12 Angry Men. It's an old, but great film. While it centers around the interaction of twelve very different men, it does address many legal issues well with witness testimony being one of them. ",
"To answer your question, think about what the point is of *evidence*. \n\nEvidence is rarely dispositive, rather, evidence is used to *evidence* that something did or did not happen. Evidence is the remnant traces of an act. Like the remaining grains of a sandstorm, the traces of an act can be found lodged *everywhere*, and the interests of justice demand that as many grains be swept together to adequately portray the sandstorm's nature.\n\nSo look at eyewitness testimony; it's potentially incredibly unreliable, but is oftentimes the only remains of an act. Since we do not yet live in a time where there are camera's on everyone and every street corner (though the UK is working on that) we *have* to rely on what we have available to us, which is often *only* the accounts of eye witnesses. \n\nHere's the big \"However\"; eyewitness testimony subjects the testifying party to the cross examination of the opposition counsel. In these instances, the opposition counsel will readily try to discredit, through questioning and introduction of relevant evidence, the validity of the testifying witness.\n\nSo imagine a woman claims she's been raped. If her sole support is the testimony of her friend, then the opposition/defense would bring up the potential bias, and would therefore cause the jury to have to mull over whether the friend is lying. To say nothing more of the hypothetical, the jury would be in their position as finders of fact, to determine the voracity of the evidence, in the making of their decision. \n\nSo, to answer your question specifically, there are *plenty* of situations where eyewitness testimony is relevant in the sentencing of a person to life in prison. To be relevant, the testimony must appear to be truthful, and the testimony must overcome the jury's standards for what is believable/not believable. \n\n",
"Keep in mind that just because you hear something, doesn't make it 'happen frequently.' This is the [availability heuristic](_URL_3_), where you feel like an event happens more frequently because you've heard an example. For example, you might think planes are more likely to disappear today than you did 6 months ago, because of the Malaysia Airlines thing being all over the news.\n\nSecondly, 75% is actually 179 convictions. The US convicts something like [80,000](_URL_0_) people each year. Even if you overestimate that that's 179 cases a YEAR being overturned, that'd be 0.2% of convictions being from faulty eyewitness testimony.\n\nAnd lastly, of course memory is unreliable, but these are experimental conditions which evaluate the ability to manipulate a single memory. You wouldn't state that you're entire childhood experience didn't happen, or your memory of the first time you kissed someone didn't happen with the person you thought it did... Of course, memories can be planted, or altered, but at the core, the vast majority of our memories are correct. Even the memory implantation studies had to rely on memories from family members to serve as control events.\n\nEveryone here is saying eyewitness testimony is faulty. I know that some memories would stick with me. For example, if [I saw a guy drop a backpack that exploded next to me and was able to describe his appearance](_URL_1_), or if [I saw my mom murdered by my father](_URL_2_), I think I'd be a credible witness to the event. The job of the jury is to determine if people are lying, or have had their memory of the event altered, or have fuzzy recollection, and weight it accordingly.\n\nSo, in a nutshell, we're always going to have eyewitness testimony, because we don't live a place where there is sufficient constant surveillance to record the actions and identities of others. The hope would be when people are convicted that there is sufficient additional evidence around to convince a jury that the person in front of them is the person responsible. ",
"Taken from the meta thread on \"Why are people suddenly using ELI5 to ask loaded questions and make political statements?\" (_URL_0_)\n\nGo to /r/changemyview",
"I feel like this question is strictly aimed at the united states, isnt it ?",
"(Under U.S. Law) Important distinction: it's not enough to sentence, it's enough to convict. The jury is the trier of fact and is supposed to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In most cases with very few exceptions, the judge has sentencing discretion. \n\nFirst, the innocent are less likely to take a plea bargain and, therefore, are more likely to go to trial. This is why sentences are harsher for people who are convinced through the trial process. Over 90% of cases plead out. Thus, if you have innocent people, they are mostly lumped into that 10%. The Justice system sees this as a gamble. It's not fair, but if you waste the court's time and end up being found guilty anyway, you will get a far harsher sentence for a more serious charge... for the same damn crime. Without this incentive, hardly anyone would plead and the court system would come to grinding halt. \n\nSecond, eyewitness testimony is very convincing to a jury yet very unreliable, especially cross racial identification. If someone is stuck with a public defender or has otherwise limited resources, they can lack the money to pay an expert witness who will say otherwise. \n\nThird, in order to charge, all the state needs is probable cause, although best practice is \"substantial likelihood of conviction.\" \n\nFinally, there's a whole boatload of other factors such as police/prosecution, a lot having to do with human nature, but once they think they have a suspect, they work to build a case and can be very myopic. Also, police/prosecutors have very little to no accountability when they get the wrong person by negligently, recklessly, or even intentionally build a case against the wrong person. The justice system is pretty flawed in many areas. There are many more factors that play into wrongful convictions, but those are the big ones I can think of off the top of my head. \n\nEdit: grammar and clarity. \n\n\n",
"Would you rather have a Big Brother type system where we are monitored 24/7 (like London is right now)? Eye-witnesses are cross-examined and the truth (hopefully) comes out...in short, it's the best we can do (aside from forensics). (parenthesis).",
"It isn't. Where did you get this impression? a jury can choose to convict in a case without any eyewitness testimony, or acquit in cases with extensive eyewitness testimony. I very recently served on a jury for a murder/attempted murder trial in which the attempted murder victim herself offered eyewitness testimony. Not only did the defendant not receive a life sentence, he was acquitted, because the state simply did not meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. ",
"As an antiques restorer, preparer of items for sale at auction and as an expert witness in trials related to moving damage and their probable causes, I know a few things about eyewitness.\n\nPeople see what they expect to see under the circumstances. \n\nThey fill in the blanks with assumptions, and ignore the bits that do not fit.\n\nThey do not observe well at all.\n\nEven I, as an experienced evaluator of items, need several looks at things to observe it completely. I have to force myself to do basic things like count the number of knobs, and see if they are all the same on a bureau.\n\nI would experiment on polishing furniture and found that all I needed to do to give the impression they were in great shape was to polish the highlight parts, and leave the rest dull.\n\nPeople, as the magicians and three card monte players know are easily mis directed.\n\neyewitness? \n\nIf that's all they got, considering the great propensity of cops to taint lineups and presenting information in a slanted way to potential witnesses?\n\nI would vote to acquit every time on principle.\n\nI have experienced the detectives showing me a spread of photos of suspects, four B & W and a color polaroid of the perp sticking up in the middle.\n\nI noped right outta picking by the photos, saying I am a poor observer of who just robbed me. \n\nIt could have been her sister, or some equally similar other person, I didn't really remember. \n\nBut they wanted something to nail her with. I knew I could not honestly say she was the one based on the photo or even in face to face. It was all a blur.\n\nBUT those cops, man, they would have done her down on my coerced say so as an eyewitness.\n\n",
"All the responses you will get from this will be from people saying \"because they swore on the bible, so it must be true\".\n\nI think an eye witness' account should be taken into account but should not be the sole deciding factor in judgement. The bible will not stop the good majority of people from lying or from not remembering the circumstances of the situation as accurately as may be needed.",
"Your daughter comes running in the house screaming Daddy, Daddy there a pink elephant in the yard! (Eye witness testimony.) You don't believe her of course and go on about your day. The next day while cutting the grass you see elephant prints in the yard. (Circumstantial evidence.)\n\nThe weight given to eyewitness testimony is relative and frequently affected by other evidence or testimony. Having been both a prosecutor and appellate defense attorney, being convicted on eyewitness testimony alone is rarely ever the case. A witness' demeanor, other evidence and circumstances can affect the weight or credibility given to eyewitness testimony, pushing it further toward or away from being believable beyond a reasonable doubt.",
"Have you not seen My Cousin Vinny?",
"Not to sound trite, but it is because this is how (at least in the U.S.) the legal system developed, and as a slow-evolving system, a rule prohibiting verdicts solely on eyewitness testimony has not been implemented federally or in the individual states.\n\nAllow me to provide two well-known legal rules: (a) you cannot convict someone of a crime unless the crime is proven beyond a reasonable doubt; and (b) all relevant evidence is admissible.\n\nAllow me also to provide a very simple hypo: John strangles Jane to death, and Walter sees it. There is no other evidence for the prosecution except that Jane's body shows signs of strangulation.\n\nThe prosecution has the burden of proof and will provide Walter's testimony and medical evidence related to Jane's death. Walter's evidence is admissible because it is relevant (other rules of evidence may leave the testimony out, but let's not complicate).\n\nThe judge or jury must then make a determination as to whether the evidence proves guilt **beyond a reasonable doubt**. However, the judge has multiple tools if there is insufficient evidence, including: (a) directed verdict for the defendant (meaning, the prosecution has not met its burden to produce enough evidence, and defendant is acquitted) or (b) grant of motion to set aside judgement.\n\n**The crux of your question is here**: Why would the jury convict, and the judge not use these tools? In this case, twelve lay-people (after understanding their roles in the process) and the judge (with substantial legal training and experience) made this determination of guilt. Further, an appellate court likely made a determination that there were no errors warranting reversal or acquittal. *It must have been so clear to all of these individuals that John killed Jane to allow conviction.*\n\nIf there was an error in the process, then it would relate to an underlying societal problem (e.g., prejudice/discrimination), and it seems that the system is getting better and better at identifying and resolving these problems. However, thousands and thousands of individuals are placed in the hands of the justice system, and I think the process and tools described above do a very good job of sifting through those guilty of a specified crime (whether such act should be a crime to begin with is another issue). \n\nWe only ever hear about the problems in the system; we never hear \"Up next, we learn that inmate #12345 was properly convicted of assault and battery.\"\n\nTL/DR: The system has numerous safeguards, but sometimes problems beyond those inherent in the system leads to an unfair result, and we only ever hear about the miscarriages of justice.",
"Probably because it's not. ",
"Was on a jury where it was all eye witness testimony, not quite sure how it got to court even. While we all were pretty sure something happened, no physical evidence = not guilty. ",
"It's based in the common law idea that man has the right to face his accuser(s).",
"It's not like people can lie under oath or have hidden agendas, right? ",
"Why do we believe people who tell us shit on reddit?\n\n",
"The credibility of eyewitness testimony is inversely proportional of the time from the actual event being witnessed. ",
"It's 'cuz you swear on the Bible. Nobody will lie after having to do that, duh.",
"Don't kid yourself. Our justice system is a complete joke. ",
"Our justice system is more based on fulfilling a system to serve justice, than actually trying to serve true justice. This system has many faults, biases, cultural stigmas, and corruptions to properly function. It's role now is just mainly to satisfy those with money.",
"I am a lawyer who deals with eyewitness testimony all the time. My sense is that this is not so much a question as it is an invitation to debate, but I'm going to treat it like a legitimate question and not comment on whether this is good or bad policy. I'm just going to give you an argument in favor of allowing convictions on eyewitness testimony alone. For the purpose of this argument, please assume all the following facts are all true:\n\nSusie, a freshman at University of Florida, is walking home after a night out with friends. As she rounds the corner, she feels arms grab her from behind and squeeze so hard she can't breathe. The area is actually well-lit and she gets a good look at her attacker's face. Thank god, all he asks her for is her purse! Traumatized, she gives up the purse. The attacker runs away, and she immediately goes home and calls the police. No physical evidence is found, but Susie is clearly traumatized and the detective believes her story.\n\n2 days later, Susie picks her attacker out of a six-person lineup without hesitation, saying she is \"100% sure\" that is the guy who attacked her; she immediately starts crying. The detective believes her.\n\nNow, here is my question:\n\nWhat do we say to Susie? Are you really suggesting that the detective say \"I'm sorry Susie, I know you were attacked, robbed, and traumatized, and I know you are 100% sure this is the guy, and I believe you, but the attacker didn't leave any physical evidence or have any physical evidence on him, so we can't file a case.\"\n\nWhat kind of a message does that send to criminals? A violent criminal could murder someone in a room full of priests who have known him since childhood, but if there's no physical evidence, the case can't be filed? I agree that is an absurd example, but don't think for a second there isn't a whole subset of criminals who would take advantage of a policy like that unmercifully.\n\nAnd what is physical evidence anyway? If the detective finds Susie's purse in a dumpster outside of the defendant's house, isn't that physical, non-testimonial evidence? Is the dumpster close enough? What if the dumpster was outside the defendant's apartment building? Now can the detective file the case? \n\nHopefully people will see that this is not as simple as just making a bright-line rule. From a \"pure law\" perspective, I think the balance works as it is: The Jury is asked to consider whether the testimony matches other evidence in the case. Obviously, if there is no other evidence, that is a real problem the defense should point out to the Jury as a reason to acquit, thus eyewitness testimony alone is \"disfavored\" as a matter of course. The State has an opportunity to try a case on testimony alone, and the defense has the opportunity to point out the lack of corroborating evidence. \n\nThe issue, at that point, is that its up to a random group of people to decide whether there's a plausible reason to doubt the state's case. Juries, of course, are totally unreliable and unpredictable, but that's a criticism of the jury system, not the rule allowing eyewitness testimony.",
"Attorney here. A person may be convicted of any crime by any evidence so long as the: (1) evidence is **admissible**, and (2) is of sufficient **weight**.\n\n**Admissibility**:\nEvidence is admissible (the fact finder may considered it) so long as the evidence is (1) relevant, (2) has probative value (tends to prove or disprove a fact in controversy), and (3) is not otherwise excluded. \n\nEvidence otherwise admissible (*i.e.* meeting element one and two above) may be excluded for several reasons. Exclusions are codified (listed in federal or state evidence codes) or appear in common law (historically are excluded by courts). \n\nOne of the most common exclusions is when the deponent (person testifying) lacks personal knowledge. This happens when the deponent didn't actually see/hear/know about the events they are testifying about. Commonly, when the deponent is testifying about what someone else told them, not something they personally observed, the testimony is excluded as impermissible \"hearsay.\" \n\n**Weight**\nOnce evidence is deemed admissible, the fact finder determines the evidence's weight. Evidence is sufficient (enough) to convict a person of a crime if all elements of the crime are proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Either a jury or a judge (a right to a jury trial exists for all crimes that result in 6 mo. incarceration or more - but the defendant can also elect to have the judge determine facts) must therefore find that the facts the gov't alleges (only the gov't can bring criminal charges) actually happened, beyond a reasonable doubt. \n\nIt doesn't matter if the evidence is eyewitness testimony, scientific evidence, or anything else. So long as the evidence is admissible the fact finder is allowed to make a determination on its weight. So long as its weight convinces the fact finder beyond a reasonable doubt of all elements of the crime the defendant can be convicted of that crime. \n\n**TL;DR**: eyewitness testimony is allowed to convict someone of a crime if it is admissible (based on the rules of evidence) and convincing beyond a reasonable doubt. \n\n**Still TL;DR**: if defense counsel sucked. \n\nEdit: minor grammatical corrections. ",
"I live in Scotland and our legal system has the requirement of corroboration: _URL_0_ . It's a little controversial and may be changing due to difficulties in prosecuting cases like domestic abuse and rape. The flipside is that it's an important safeguard for the wrongly accused. "
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"http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php",
"http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/justice/new-york-wrongful-conviction/index.html?hpt=hp_t2",
"http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201203/unreliable-memory"
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2csqtv | if drugs like quaaludes aren't produced anymore because of their illegality, why aren't they produced on the black market like cocaine, lsd, and other drugs of the likes? | I don't understand why it's not produced illegally. Is the "recipe" unknown? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2csqtv/eli5_if_drugs_like_quaaludes_arent_produced/ | {
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"It's not a problem with the \"recipe\"; after looking at its structure, I think I could propose a reasonable synthesis mechanism from common-ish precursors. However, it might be expensive or difficult to obtain the precursors (they're likely regulated) and reagents necessary to run the reaction. Additionally, supply will meet demand in the drug market, as in any other; there isn't a huge demand for 'ludes since there are relatively cheap and easily obtainable substitutes (opiates, barbiturates etc.). \n\nedit: As mentioned below, risk is also a huge factor; the presence of close substitutes makes the risk of illegal manufacture or purchase of Quaaludes (methaqualone) not worth it. I've done a bit of research on informal drug economies in Mexico/Central America and also studied pharmaceuticals for quite some time, happy to talk more about it if anyone is interested. \n\nedit #2: made this not sound like I am a DEA agent/Mexican drug lord. I am simply theganjlord. Now please excuse me while I drive out to the desert in my RV.",
"According to [its Wikipedia page](_URL_0_) it is. It states that it is more popular in India and Africa, particularly South Africa. It is possible that there is simply no demand for it where you are and therefore no supply.",
"Hipsters haven't brought it back in style.",
"Did you just finally watch Wolf of Wallstreet too? Cuz I was wondering about them in general as well. I mean, I don't want them or anything. I wondered if people get their hands on them if they are super old like the Lemmons from the movie.",
"Quaaludes have one major reason why they aren't made on the black market, the same reason they were replace...a stonger, cheaper alternative. Benzos",
"Probably very little demand for it, at least in the U.S. and Europe, since benzodiazepines like Xanax and Klonopin became much more popular for recreational use. Most people under 30-35 probably never even heard of Quaaludes until they saw Wolf of Wall Street. ",
"If they're not available it must be due to lack of demand. Because if there was a demand they'd find a way to make them illegally or smuggle them in.",
"they are still produced and dispensed in other countries.",
"There's just no market for it. Anyone who's old enough to remember enjoying Quaaludes now belongs to the AARP. Before Wolf of Wall Street came out, no one under the age of 45 even knew what a quaalude was. ",
"hold on a sec? ludes aren't produced anymore?! I don't want to die sober!",
"From the second paragraph of the wiki article on [Quaaludes](_URL_0_):\n\n\"It is still produced and used clandestinely as a recreational drug throughout the world.\"",
"Just learned what Methaqualone is. Can someone explain me why is it illegal? There seem to be quite an amount of similar effect legal drugs...",
"We have better drugs now, there is no demand for them. MDMA and such. You can buy them in Mexico though. ",
"Because we have better drugs now. You want to be sedated into oblivion? Eat a handful of benzos. You want blissful apathy? Shoot some heroin.",
"I realize that I am a little late, but the other answers are not entirely correct IMO.\nWhile we do not see methaqualone in the US due to easy availability of benzos, the reagents and precursors are surprisingly enough much more easily obtained than the aformentioned MDMA and LSD\nHowever, the issue of contamination due to possibly toxic reagents, mainly toluene, make it that anything other than an extremely pure synthesis possibly toxic to the user. Finally, the doses needed for recreation are at least .3 grams, usually at least .5, make small-scale synthesis somewhat pointless unless it is for personal use, while the synthesis of a few grams of methamphetamine would net hundreds, or a few grams of acid would net tens of thousands.\nDespite these factors, large scale syntheses of methaqualone are still taking place in placed like India and 500mg \"Mandrax\" tablets from the resulting methaqualone are widespread in South Africa, where it is still extremely popular. ",
"Quaaludes is still sold in some markets. \"Mandrax\" is the name for it in South Africa where it is very easy to get hold of. It is normally crushed and sprinkled on marijuana and smoked. Just look up \"Mandrax\" on Google.\n\nEdit: I know this is easy to get as growing up at least 2 in my circle of friends used to smoke it.",
"_URL_0_\n\nRecipe here. Doesn't look any harder/more dangerous than making meth.",
"You actually can find Quaaludes on certain parts of the internet.",
"This just took me back to drug wars on my ti83.... I was so good at that game!",
"Something...something...Denis Leary in \"No Cure For Cancer...something...something.",
"I would pay up to $100 for one Quaalude. ",
"They still are available online. Etiquallone (sp?) And others. I've seen silly low prices too. $8 a gram at ten grams. I believe they used to be very large pills so that might not equate to too many pills but still, 80 dollars for ten grams of anything can't be too bad... A lot of these online hookups disappeared after April 2013 when the federal analogue act was passed and most of those sites stopped shipping to US altogether. I would still think that these would be more popular than they are especially with the price of heroin being so high. If I were a dealer I would seriously consider cutting my dope with etiqualone. Surprised it isn't common place.... I guess the dopeman isn't terribly internet saavy. As per my username, no I am not actually the dopeman. \nSource: done a lot of drugs.",
"Probably too late but this dude was trying to do it last year:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Quaaludes are big in certain parts of the world, they're just used differently. \n\nSouth Africa, Cape Town, 2006. Quaaludes are a poor-person drug. They're called \"button\". If you're extremely poor, in a black neighborhood due to apartheid, life sucks. \n\nTake a button, crush it, place it on top of skunk weed in a shattered bottle. The drinking part... you don't need the rest. Smoke in one drag. Proceed to get fucked up, vomit, pass out for 72 hours. Yes, life can be that bad. \n\nI tried it... but a small \"sample\" dose. The street dealer was very confused. I was like.. button. He was like, coke. No, button. Uhhh, weed? No, button... okay what the fuck white boy. Give me 20 minutes. It's like... being really drunk. "
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1zlfl2 | what is twitch and why is he/she/it playing pokemon? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zlfl2/eli5_what_is_twitch_and_why_is_hesheit_playing/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n\nTwitch is not a person, but a website. The site hosts video streams, most often used for video games and related events. You can watch people playing various video games. \n\nTwitchPlaysPokemon is a bit of a social experiment. What happens is there is a program that reads the chat room messages, and translates them into commands in the game. Saying Left will move the character left of the menu left. Saying \"A\" will have the game press \"A\". Given how there are normally at least 50,000 people in the chatroom constantly spamming commands, it has made for some interesting game play. Sometimes the character does something stupid, like releasing all the good Pokemon they had, and othertimes they do the impossible like catch the legendary Pokemon Zapdos.\n\n\nWatch it here _URL_0_twitchplayspokemon",
"The original Twitch channel was running Pokemon Red. Now it is playing Pokemon Crystal. To add on to [/u/Froggypwns](_URL_0_), here is a [good read](_URL_1_) on the major events that happened during the very popular Pokemon Red and the individual memes that spawned from it."
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3ud262 | why is black friday even a thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ud262/eli5why_is_black_friday_even_a_thing/ | {
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"Why \"black\" Friday, though? ",
"In the Great Depression a big problem was that too many people tried to withdraw money from the banks which meant the local branches ran out before the Federal Reserve could resupply the banks with currency. This meant more people lost trust in the banks and tried to take their money out. \n\nSo FDR declared several national holidays where the banks would be closed and federal employees would have the day off work. One of these was thanksgiving. By closing the banks the Fed could resupply the banks and people would regain trust. \n\nA result of this is that thanksgiving became the last major holiday before Christmas. The day after became one of the biggest shopping days of the year because everybody had the day off, thanks to FDR, and it was the start of Christmas season. \n\nIt got the name \"black friday\" because it was the point that businesses would turn from being \"in the red\" (net loss) to \"in the black.\" \n\nA smaller example is president's day weekend, which also sees increased sales traffic but nowhere near as much as black friday (because there's no christmas)\n\nEdit, to go one further all the craziness is a recent development. So many people were out shopping the retailers decided to have crazy sales to try and draw them away from their competitors and buy their products, which brought out more shoppers which created crazier sales and drew out more shoppers. It's really like the last 5 years that the positive feedback loop has gotten so ridiculous, but many people just try and avoid it now so maybe it's going to turn around. ",
"Black Friday was never always a \"Thing\". Over the last 15 to 20-odd years, it's become a \"Thing\" as we know it today, but it never really was. \n\nThe story goes that the term Black Friday originated in Philadelphia of all places. It was used to describe the sheer increase in amount of pedestrian and automotive traffic that the day after Thanksgiving brought. The term slowly began to get broad acceptance in the 1970s. Conversely, there is another story, more in line with what I believe is fairly true. The name came from the fact that most retailers would operate in the red (Running at a Loss in their Ledgers, which was traditionally denoted in Red Ink or a Parenthetical with a Negative Sign attached to it) from January thru November. After Thanksgiving, retailers would finally start to turn a profit, and their ledgers would be in the Black (Running a Profit in the Ledger is traditionally denoted by Black Ink) as people would spend money in advance of the holidays. \n\nSo why is it a thing? If we assume that the name comes from the profit seen by retailers, then it becomes easier to see and understand. Black Friday has served as the start of the \"Unofficial\" Christmas Season and has a very consumerist bent because of how much of an impact it has on the bottom line. It still is a thing because how much business gets done between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Even with the recession a few years ago, a significant amount of money is spent over the 4-Day weekend; in 2014, roughly $50 Billion was spent in both retail stores and online. And that was down ~10% from the year prior, which saw $55 Billion being spent. \n\nIt still is a thing because it will always be considered the true start of the Christmas Season. Sadly, the actual value of Black Friday has been diminishing over the last 5-7 years with the \"Christmas Creep\" having seen more people getting ready for Christmas earlier and earlier. ",
"A friend at work said his wife asked him the same thing.\n\nHe told her it was the day slaves were traded each year during the slave trades.\n\nShe freaked out. Said omg, I'm never going black friday shopping again!",
"Also, why is it now a thing in Canada? Our thanksgiving was last month"
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dz04nx | what happens with matter when it is nuked? | Gasses, liquids and solid matter. Do they disappear? Does Solid matter turn into gass? Does gass-atoms split? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dz04nx/eli5_what_happens_with_matter_when_it_is_nuked/ | {
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"Most is simply burned or smashed, as with a normal bomb. But very close to the nuclear explosion, it is vaporized (solid turns to gas) by the intense heat.",
"Most of the matter that seems to disappear after a nuke has just been vaporised. That is, it has been turned into a gas by the amount of energy the nuke has. Some of the matter burns, also turning into a gas in the process. Some of the matter just changes in other ways. Sand will fuse into glass, in some places rocks may melt. In some places humans will melt. \n\nThe only atoms that split are the uranium atoms inside the nuke (and even then, a lot of them don't split, and just get blasted into the atmosphere as part of the radioactive fallout).\n\nThe important thing to remember is that matter can't be created or destroyed (technically it can but that's a subject for a whole other ELI5), so none of it can disappear, only change state.",
"The Tsar bomb released 50 Mt TNT. That's 50,000,000 t of TNT. 1 t of TNT is equivalent to 4,184 MJ. So Tsar Bomba released 50,000,000 \\* 4,184 = 209,200,000,000 MJ = 2\\*10\\^11 MJ.\n\nNow, given that *E*=*mc*2, we have *m* = 2\\*10\\^11 / 299,792,458\\^2 = 0.0000022253 kg of mass converted into pure energy.\n\nThat means solid matter no longer exists in the universe, it's since been transformed into heat and light, and that transform is part of what makes the weapon so powerful.\n\nThis material transform into energy happens in the core of the implosion, in the first fraction of a second into the detonation. The rest of the material, including a fair amount of the pit and second stage, is cast off. The material thrown by the blast, ie the entire target city < /s > , is scattered into dust through the atmosphere and settles as dust."
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9r8q3a | what is the design process of building an application? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9r8q3a/eli5_what_is_the_design_process_of_building_an/ | {
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"Ex-developer and now IT project manager here. It depends on the size and complexity of the application.\n\nFor little wee ones like an Excel macro that processes a sheet or a data-cleansing routine, you usually have an idea in mind of what you need to have happen, so you break it down into steps and work through developing each step. So your mental map of the data cleanser might be: Pick up a record, look at it for these features, correct these features if you find them, put back that record in a new area. Then you build those (sometimes in order, sometimes not), test and tweak it as you go along until it's done.\n\nFor slightly larger and more complex apps, such as a simple game, first someone thinks about where they want to go with it, then they write the basics down to describe it to whoever is paying for it to justify getting money (if not themselves). With that concept of the game there, they start breaking it down into what they need to do first - for example, a sidescrolling game needs the ability for the character to stand on something, or a data processing application needs to connect to a data source and read a record from it - and work through that, then meshing out each additional detail as they continue. Sometimes this approach needs a concept demo too, such as if you're going after kickstarter funding. The developer invests some of their time into building a tiny part of the game that will look and feel a little like the end product, then shows it to the people they want money from so that audience can see what they're going to get. Then the now-funded developer gets approval and funding to do all the remaining detail work.\n\nBig projects need teams need a much larger approach. You start with the basics in a story - \"it will be a first person science fiction single-player shooter with a machine possession mechanic and will support multiplayer\", and then each of your sub-teams on it gets their piece to do once you've decided on fundamentals like what gaming engine you're going to use if you don't build your own, what platforms you're going to target, and who the target audience is (e.g. whether it has cartoony characters or gory exploding ones). The story/script team starts building how the visual world will work and how single-person gameplay will flow by working closely with the art design team, and the technical team weighs in on what's technically possible versus what's not. This is a very back-and-forth process. The multiplayer mechanics team starts working on getting all the send/receive processing going. Then as things work along, all the team leaders meet and check with the boss to ensure they're staying on direction, trading information and changes around, and hitting deadlines, and they adjust as they go along.\n\nThe \"traditional way\" of doing all that organizing, called \"waterfall\", was to write down and get a signed off list of details before you start coding. The \"modern way\" is called \"agile\" and saying \"This is what we're pointing at doing this month\", getting approval for that, then doing it and figuring out what the next month's work will be like when the time comes. Agile is more flexible than waterfall, but it's also less locked-in, so it's useful for some types of projects more than others.",
"The design process of building any software starts with the “methodology” which is basically a blue print. Traditionally this was the waterfall methodology called like that because once you finished one stage you went to the next one. Newer methodologies are closer to the “agile methodology” which is the same as waterfall in terms of the steps you make, but they vary in length and number.\n\nThe steps are generally: \n\n- writing a requirements specification, which is giberi-goo for talking to the client and finding out what they want. What the application should do and how it should do it. Colours, run-time, size etc. \n\n- design stage, doing plans or drawings for instance. The designers should talk to the client and agree on a certain look\n\n- implementation, which is what most of you will know. This stage actually builds the software and including the coding essentially. \n\n- testing \n\n- roll-out and providing additional support. Here the software might get uploaded / installed if necessary. Maybe bug fix patches / extra content patches will be provided if that’s what the team agreed to.\n\n**The steps above are generally what’s being used in different shapes and forms.** Traditional waterfall methodology would do these one after the other. Agile would do little implementation - > little testing...multiple times! ",
"The design process or the development process?\n\nDevelopment environments and technology standards allow for very agile, iterative approaches these days. So depending on the scale of the project (ie number of people) design phase might be skipped completely in favour of jumping straight into a working prototype. I'm a software developer and often the design phase is as simple as a few bullet points of requirements, maybe a sketch of the layout. We aim to get something working and usable as soon as possible, so we can get a smaller feedback loop. You don't want to spend 3 months working on something, then reveal it, only to have it be all wrong or unfit for practical use.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nA common approach in the industry is to have a collection of \"user stories\". These are simple requirements from the perspective of one or more user, which can later be translated into functionality and design choices for the developer. These user stories are then turned into work items and assigned to the appropriate developer.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nExample:\n\nAs a customer I want to save my bank details for use later.\n\nAs a customer I want to save my address for use later.\n\nAs a customer I want to order pizza.\n\nAs a driver I want gps navigation to the customer's house.\n\nAs a vendor I want to upload my menu.",
"1.\tidentify the need that your app will address\n2.\twrite up imaginary cases where a person would want to use your app to address that need\n3.\twrite up a technical description of which features are necessary to satisfy 2\n4.\tblueprint out the app - mock up, wireframe, design, however you want to approach, but take 3 and turn it into something that’s laid out visually\n5.\ttake 4 and turn it into something that *looks* as close as possible to the final version\n6.\twrite code until it looks like 5 and functions as described in 3\n7.\ttest the shit out of it, making edits to 5 and 6 to reflect test results\n8.\tfinalize the app, and get ready to release it!",
"Software developer for Amazon Web Services here. In the interest of keeping in ELI5 spirit:\n\nPeople have different ways of doing this. \n\nSome people like thinking really hard, and then writing down what they thought about. They get other people who also thought really hard about it to read what they wrote. Even more people who are friends with the people who will use the application read what they wrote and think really hard about what their friends want. If the application is going to be really big, this takes a really long time because everyone has to say yes. Then engineers get in a room for lots of months and build the application. On some date that everyone agreed on, the application gets released. Then everyone hopes they were right about what users wanted. This is called Waterfall development.\n\nOther people don't spend as much time thinking about it, and they usually don't write down what they thought. They start building right away, knowing they're probably going to be wrong a few times. Then they go ask all their friends after maybe a couple weeks if they like what they built so far. It's a bonus if those friends will actually end up using the thing they built. They then take what their friends said and change what they built so that their friends like it more. They keep doing this until people want them to start doing a different thing more. That's called Agile.\n\nSometimes people do stuff like sit together and build at the same time (pair/mob programming), or write a little program that says what to build and then build to make the program happy (test driven development), or even guess every two weeks how much stuff they can do in the next two weeks (scrum). People can do stuff like that whether they use Waterfall, Agile, or something different.\n\nNo matter what though, they're all just different ways of trying to make people a little happier by writing code."
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1cre0f | please explain rhesus negative incompatibility during pregnancy? | My girlfriend and I are having a baby and she is rhesus negative, I'm confused as fuck, can you please explain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cre0f/eli5_please_explain_rhesus_negative/ | {
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"If nobody answers you can try in /r/askscience. It is usually a place for pretty detailed answers but they are certainly willing to explain it to a layperson, it's a great sub. ",
"Are you Rhesus positive?\n\nRhesus status only matters if you have a RhD-negative mother who is carrying an RhD-positive baby. Your child will have inherited this from your RhD-positive blood.\n\nIf some of the baby's blood enters your gf's bloodstream, their immune system may react to the D antigen in your baby's blood. It will be treated as a foreign invader and your body will produce antibodies against it. This is known as a sensitising event. Sensitising is not usually harmful if it is your first pregnancy. But it can cause problems if you become pregnant again with another RhD-positive baby. The antibodies that your body made in your first pregnancy can cross the placenta and attack the blood cells of your baby. When your baby's blood cells are attacked, it can cause anaemia. If the anaemia becomes severe, it can lead to life-threatening problems for your baby, such as heart failure and fluid retention.\n\nA simple blood test can detect the issue, and if it is the case doctors can manage it if it is her first pregnancy. ",
"I'll give it a shot. Rh factor is an antigen present on the surface of red blood cells. If an Rh- person gets exposed to Rh+ blood, their body will make antibodies against Rh factor. Then, the next time the body encounters Rh factor, the body will attack it. This can be troubling during pregnancy.\n\nContrary to popular belief, the mother and fetus don't share the same blood. The fetus has its own blood which gets its nutrients from the mothers. During the birthing process, sometimes the mom's and baby's blood can get mixed, which is where this whole issue comes up. If the mother gets exposed to Rh factor, she will make antibodies against it. While this won't affect the newborn, the *next* time she gets pregnant with an Rh+ baby, her body could potentially encounter the Rh factor and attack it, causing harm to the baby. So, if a mother is Rh negative, she is given something called RhoGAM during the first pregnancy to prevent her from ever making those antibodies in the first place. "
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6jryxt | why do so many stories involve the main character's parent(s) dying? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jryxt/eli5_why_do_so_many_stories_involve_the_main/ | {
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"Building up of character and motivations that generates within the character when a love one died. This helps to drive the plot and audience understand why the character is doing such action to justify his/her motivations.\n\nE.g Batman parents died to a mugger so Batman is motivated to fight crime,Uncle Ben dies so Spider-man learns to be responsible, alot of revenge stories.etc\n",
"Everyone has parents, parents dying is relatable to everyone, and would hit everyone in the same way. ",
"Generally speaking, there are two reasons why this is done.\n\nTraditionally, the parents die because it creates a motivation for the protagonist to start his adventure. Typical in young adult stories and novels, the death of parents signify that there is no more reason for a protagonist to keep the status quo, making them act on their emotions and allow them to go on an adventure. This is prevalent in stories like The Batman, Flash, Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride and Chun-Li from Street Fighter where their entire trigger is the death of their parents. It also compels the audience to relate with the protagonist because they lost a loved one.\n\nThe second and more recent reason for this relies on the idea of parental absence/abandonment scenario - prevalent in newer stories. This is where the parents die just for convenience so that the protagonist will not be questioned in things that he's bound to do for the plot. This type is prevalent in pre-teen stories where the protagonist would need far more supervision than an adult but since they don't have parents, they can be excused with whatever they do for the sake of plot. Some garden variety stories include Naruto, Harry Potter and the Last Airbender.",
"Assuming that the story arch is not about the dead parents, it also \"frees up\" the character from familial obligations or supervision. A young character can be read as more in charge of their own destiny than a young character with parents. \n "
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5h5w8r | why is a hammer hitting a nail so loud? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5h5w8r/eli5why_is_a_hammer_hitting_a_nail_so_loud/ | {
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"Notice that a nail driven into a 4x4 wood post sounds different than one driven into a sheet of dry wall or even a concrete block. Why? Because the hammering also vibrates the object the nail is being driven into and the sound changes as the nail is driven deeper and deeper and the density, rigidity and sound conductivity of the nailed surface impacts the loudness of the hammering. It is also a matter of how well you hit the nail, because hitting the nail can sound duller than missing the nail and hitting the post directly. Or when hitting the nail and the post directly once the nail becomes flush with the surface of the post."
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56xubt | why is fiberglass so itchy? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56xubt/eli5_why_is_fiberglass_so_itchy/ | {
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"Fiberglass is literally made of glass fibers. Like tiny threads.\nGlass is sharp, especially if it's the size of thread. So if it pokes you, it penetrates the top layers of the skin a little, and this causes irritation. \n\nThe fibers aren't thick or heavy enough to press in deeper so there's not much risk of them getting completely embedded in your skin. However if you're exposed to fiberglass all the time, like you work with it, fibers ending up all over your body and face can eventually get rubbed down deep into tissue and interfere with where new cells are made and this can cause problems, such as cancer. It's why if you touch a piece of broken fiberglass it feels itchy, but people who work on fiberglass production lines cover themselves in full body suits and masks as if it's toxic.\n"
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uw0qb | why orange juice and toothpaste make such a godawful combination. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uw0qb/eli5_why_orange_juice_and_toothpaste_make_such_a/ | {
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"Your taste buds can taste both sour and sweet things. Toothpaste has a compound in it whose name I forget, which stops the sweet tasting taste buds from working. So when you drink orange juice all you taste is the acidic sour taste which would normally be balanced out by the natural sugars and the like.\n\nIncidentally, your taste buds also don't work properly at altitude which is why plane food tastes so weird because they over flavour it so you taste something rather than nothing."
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4i8235 | how do people who are born blind figure out that they're blind? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i8235/eli5_how_do_people_who_are_born_blind_figure_out/ | {
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"If they had no human to ever tell them that sight is a thing? Then they wouldn't know what blindness is or what sight is. It would just be their normal existence. Just their normal way of life.",
"It would take a scientific mind essentially, to realize that a) there's a prominently placed organ of no obvious use, b) the human body is ill equipped to survive without it."
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3ouphp | drive formatting | Can someone please explain drive formatting and how it makes a computer more efficient. Maybe also the advantages and disadvantages? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ouphp/eli5_drive_formatting/ | {
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"Formatting a drive doesn't make it more efficient. It just wipes out all the information on the drive.\n\nIt can lead to somewhat better performance if you format a drive and reinstall. It's just a fresh start. If your kitchen was really cluttered and it took a long time to cook dinner, you could reorganize what you already have, maybe throw a few unnecessary things away, but you are still working with most of the same utensils and appliances. Formatting a drive is like completely cleaning out the kitchen, throwing everything away, then going out and buying all new utensils and appliances.",
"In order for a computer to keep track of the data on the drive, it needs to have a filesystem. The filesystem consists of data structures that keep track of where files are located on disk and what files they belong to. The process of writing these structures onto a blank drive so that it can be used is called formatting.\n\nFormatting does not make the drive more efficient. If you format a drive that already has data on it, that has the same effect as deleting every file - the computer no longer has any idea where the previous files were, and will happily overwrite them next time the disk is used. The disk will appear to be empty unless you have a tool that ignores the filesystem and dumps the raw data.\n\nThe only time you would want to format a disk is if the disk does not currently have a filesystem on it, or if it does but you'd like to change it to a different one. Formatting is also used as a way to quickly erase the contents of a drive (but be aware that formatting alone does not necessarily make the previous data unrecoverable - if you need to be sure the data cannot be recovered, overwrite the drive with random bytes first)"
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1e4kqo | how can you colorize old pictures, if they are made with 0 color intensity? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e4kqo/eli5_how_can_you_colorize_old_pictures_if_they/ | {
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"You have to add the color. The colors are not somehow extracted from the image. It's not that different from coloring in a coloring book.",
"You just paint over them with transparent paint. That's basically it.\n\nPrograms like Photoshop have special functions which help you select very specific area and add colour to parts based on their luminosity.\n\nEDIT: To clarify, you still have to choose which colour goes where. It's pretty straightforward for skin and plants, but things like clothes involve some guessing.",
"Its like a digital coloring book, but for adults.",
"You paint it in. What most likely happens is that people set the original photo to \"multiply\", which basically means that the light and dark tones will affect the color on the layer directly below it. They then paint under the image with whatever color they want."
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53breb | why does using stimulants increase the chance of sleep paralysis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53breb/eli5_why_does_using_stimulants_increase_the/ | {
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"Based on my vague understanding, sleep paralysis happens when the body is asleep and the mind is awake.\nTherefore, stimulants make your brain more active, but if you can stay still long enough, your body \"falls asleep\" and you enter sleep parslysis."
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4ajxlt | why are plastic bottles so hard to dispose of? why can't we just melt them and break them down into their starting materials (monomers?) and reuse them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ajxlt/eli5_why_are_plastic_bottles_so_hard_to_dispose/ | {
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"We do. It's called recycling",
"Now there exists plastics that once set, they can't be reused as it. Applying heat will just burn them. ",
"As you may be possibly knowing a bit about monomers, so let me tell you that all plastics are not same, they are basically polymers having different structural units or monomers. They can have different chain lengths, different functional groups, may be straight/branched/unbranched, their linkages may be different.\nWether a particular plastic can me melted and reshaped depends on its monomers and the reactions that created the polymeric chains.\nThe monomers join to form polymers by undergoing reactions, which may be reversible or irreversible, depending on which we come to know if a plastic/polymer can be broken down to it's original monomers.\nIf A+A+A+...A --- > n(A) , then the polymer can be converted to original monomers by melting or by using catalyst ONLY IF the reaction is REVERSIBLE., otherwise not. Based on this the plastics can be categorised as THERMO PLASTICS AND THERMOSETTING PLASTICS. Thermoplastics can be melted and reshaped again and again, but thermosetting plastics can be heated and shaped only once, i.e. at the time of initial formation.\nThe plastic bottles are generally made up of HDP (high density polythene) and has a polymeric structure n(CH2=CH2) and has a very closed packed structure, making it very hard to be melted and reshaped."
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1swou5 | what were naval battles (with cannons, muskets, etc.) actually like, and how were they different from what we think of??? | I've been playing a bunch of assassins creed 4, very curious about what really happened back then | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1swou5/eli5_what_were_naval_battles_with_cannons_muskets/ | {
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"This is probably a good question for /r/AskHistorians. It wouldn't be a bad idea to post it there.",
"Well, they didn't usually have some guy doing flips off the masts of one ship onto another and then personally stab 85% of the opposing crew to death all by himself."
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3j0gw0 | that effect when in bed almost dozing/dreaming you suddenly feel like stumbled and the falling sensation hits you hard with a jolt of adrenalin. | Or maybe its just me? It happens every now and again usually late at night when I'm dozing. Usually i'm thinking about something and a character hits his foot on something which makes him stumble. Even though I'm lying in bed I feel like I indeed fell a for a split second and receive a massive rush which then fizzles out. Thoughts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j0gw0/eli5_that_effect_when_in_bed_almost/ | {
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" > imagine ur a monkey sleeping in a tree\n > suddenly ur about to fall from tree\n > sudden jolt to wake you up and make sure you stay in tree\n\nYour body thinks you're about to fall from a tree, or high place and wants to save you",
"and you jerk slightly, panic a little and seem slightly more awake then you did before it happened? \n",
"That's called hypnagogic jerk, IIRC. Basically, the hypothesis is that it's caused by your brain misinterpreting the sensation of your muscles relaxing as you fall asleep. It thinks for a moment that you're losing balance, so it goes to correct it. Your conscious explanation of this automatic response is \"I felt like I was falling.\" It's harder to say whether or not the automatic response itself was because of a sensation of \"falling\" or just feeling unbalanced.",
"It usually happens when I'm very tired after a long day and I'm zoning out into sleepland. Then bam adrenaline and I'm for another hour",
"Oh Oh I got this one! Okay, so, when you go to sleep your body paralyzes itself so that you don't start sleep walking or acting out your dreams but somewhere in there if your mind doesn't fall asleep fast enough it'll be all like \"huh the muscles in my legs aren't engaged... OH CRAP I'M FALLING WAKE UP!\""
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6xrxm8 | is it true that people age faster/slower depending on what planet they're on? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xrxm8/eli5is_it_true_that_people_age_fasterslower/ | {
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"Yes, our cells decompose at a constant rate, but when you're traveling near light speed or are near a massive gravitational object, you *experience* time slower, and thus your cells also experience time slower.\n\nIn the case of Interstellar, let's say Matthew McConaughey was gone for a week (I can't remember how long he was actually gone). He would *experience* that he was gone for a week, and his body would age for a week, but for everyone back on Earth, they *experienced* that he was gone for 20+ years, and therefor aged for that amount of time.\n\nThe \"aging faster and slower\" part isn't because of the rotation of the planets or anything, it's because of [time dilation](_URL_0_), and you don't need to be traveling near the speed of light for it to happen, astronauts on the ISS age 0.005 seconds less than us on Earth every 6 months. "
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695qda | how can diet soda make me gain weight? | I've read in multiple places that diet soda can cause people to gain weight. I was wondering how it was possible, they have zero calories right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/695qda/eli5how_can_diet_soda_make_me_gain_weight/ | {
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"They can't.\n\nDiet soda is not as healthy as water for many reasons. but when it comes to gaining weight, that's a function of calories\n\nDiet soda drinkers may tend to consume more calories than their water drinking peers. maybe the diet soda plays a role in cravings, but it doesn't get turned into fat stores on your body",
"Don't listen to answers that say artificial sweeteners cause insulin to spike. There are multiples studies that show no correlation between artificial sweetener ingestion and insulin levels. [Here](_URL_0_) is a blog listing various sweeteners and the studies associated with them.\n\nOne reason for weight gain is \"the Big Mac and Diet Soda\" mentality. Many people justify eating more because they're having a diet beverage and just aren't good at estimating how many more calories they are consuming vs. how much they are saving by drinking diet drinks. \n\nThere are observational studies that say, \"People who drink diet drinks are more likely to be obese than those who don't.\" No shit. Skinny people don't tend to drink diet drinks, and fat people do. This is like saying, \"People who take blood pressure medications tend to have higher blood pressure than those who don't\" and conclude that blood pressure medications cause high blood pressure. It's a flawed logical conclusion based on faulty assumptions. \n\nDiet sodas don't directly cause weight gain. Weight gain can only come from consuming more calories than you burn off. What you eat along with your diet drink has more of an impact on weight gain than the drink itself.",
"You may or may not have read all the articles that have been published recently about the effects of Diet Coke on the body. I recently took heed to them after my fiancé put an article in front of me and pointed out that my favourite drink might have actually been the cause of my struggles for years. I gave the drink up. This is my story:-\n\nAs someone who had drank Diet Coke for nearly every single drink (apart from the occasional cup of tea) for the past 14 years it was very much part of my life. I have over the years had a great deal of issue with my weight. I always thought I was fat when I was younger (I was pretty normal) and so by the age of twenty I had developed an eating disorder. I would restrict my eating, dieting regularly, and drinking Diet Coke to keep me full. At first I would eat very nutritionally balanced meals, with a small deficit in calorie intake, of Vegetables, small pieces of protein and some unrefined carbs, but even when full I still wanted more and my weight loss wasn't enough. What was a mild diet converted into an eating disorder which soon developed into full on bulimia which very quickly spiralled into cycles of over eating and craving food from morning to night. I was obsessed with food. I drank litres of Diet Coke to fill me and ensure my calorie count was low. I would drink it at breakfast, lunch and dinner; if I was out on a night out, at yoga class or at the cinema, in fact I would drink it whenever possible. I didn't see this as a problem but more a taste option. As people around me would drink coffee and drinks higher in caffeine or calories I thought that my penchant for DCoke was pretty ok. I've never been a water fan and it helped me to get my liquids down, I felt comfortable with how low calorie it was, so that was good by me.\n\nMy weight however and cravings for food escalated disproportionately to the amount I ate or sometimes didn't eat. To lose any weight I'd have to barely eat at all restricting calories down to a minimum. When I allowed myself to eat however I was a literal bottomless pit. I blamed this on having restricted my diet for so long and that my metabolism must have slowed down so much that it craved food all the time. The Speed of weight gain increased when I started eating normally once more. I entered a happy and successful relationship and began to eat regular meals which were balanced. I gained weight consistently and quickly, but I put it down to the damamge to my metabolism and it adjusting to the new intake. This is a reasonable thing to assume. I believe that it is partly true, but My appetite when full was insatiable and I could eat 4-5 large bowls of pasta at one sitting. This was an appetite I'd never had beforez I Ate til I felt sick and craving high sugar and high fat food.\n\nMy weight went up and up until I had gained 3 stone and my doctor told me I was in the overweight category. At this point I was still drinking Diet Coke at every moment possible.\n\nThis brings me to 2 months ago when I gave up Diet Coke and it is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I read an article shown to me by my partner and decided to prove him wrong in his blaming of Diet Coke for my appetitite problems and weight gain. I didn't want to give up Diet Coke for good. I love it. Still do.\n\nIt was hell at first. I still can't see a can of it without getting cravings and it makes me shake and edgy to see it.\n\nThe first week of giving up Diet Coke I lost half a stone without even noticing. My stomach was no longer bloated and I was no longer as gassy.\n\nMy appetite has disappeared. I've now on the way to my normal BMI, losing weight every day, and I no longer crave sugary foods. I feel full without over eating and leave food on the plate. I have lost over a stone without any effort at all. Previously it was a struggle to not want more and more food straight after eating. Now I am struggling to eat a full plate.\n\nI can see now that Diet Coke has played a massive part in my struggles with my weight for years because of the food cravings it caused and I honestly blame it for my bulimia. If I had stayed away from it my weight loss would have been natural and gradual.\n\nI needed to write this if it will help anyone else who may become a victim to it. There is nothing Diet about Diet Coke."
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74spp6 | why do no carb and all fat diets work? shouldn't they become fat from eating fat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74spp6/eli5_why_do_no_carb_and_all_fat_diets_work/ | {
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"Fat does not make you fat. Excess carbohydrates becomes fat. The 1980s anti-fat messaging was wrong. If you have heart disease or numerous other conditions you should watch what you eat.",
"Lets break this down a bit because the main problem is duplicate names\n\nFats in foods are lipids, fats on you are adipose tissue. Everything you eat gets broken down into its basic blocks which get used for energy(calories). If you're consuming more calories than you burn then your body will pack some away in adipose tissue for the future. It doesn't matter if those calories come from lipids or carbs or sugars, your body packs them away the same\n\nWhat matters is calories in versus calories out",
"Basically, eating fat makes you feel full longer than eating the same amount of calories in carbs, so you tend to eat less overall.",
"You can lose weight eating anything if you control for calories. But just because you lose weight does NOT mean you are healthy. I could eat the worst garbage at mcdonalds and still lose weight, but id be at serious risk of things like diabetes and heart disease.\n\nSecond When you remove carbohydrates from your diet you use up your stores of glycogen. Your body still needs energy so it enters ketosis, in which your body burns fat for fuel instead. \n\nThe ketogenic diet can work but in reality just eat healthy, count your calories on a scale and work out and youll be fine.",
"It's all nutritional science, so take it with a light grain of salt. But a big name in this field is Tim Noakes. \n\nSupposedly fat by far isn't as problematic as it was made out to be - lots of money by the powers that be in sugar-land skewed research back in the 1980s to take attention away from sugars as a big culprit. \n\nAdding to mmmmmBacon's explanation about lipids vs. adipose tissue, from what I've understood, the idea is that if you eat carbohydrates a lot, sugar will go into your blood, you get these sugar spikes which get turned into body fat, which is problematic. By avoiding carbohydrates and focussing only on lipids in food, your body will learn to process those into the energy it leads, making for a much more even flow of energy leading to less getting permanently stored on your body.",
"Calories in vs calories out is an overly-simplified and incorrect model of human weight gain. What we want to know is what causes people to store fat and how can we change how that happens. There are a lot of factors to weight gain, but the main mechanism is the absorption of fatty acids by fat cells. This is mainly stimulated by the presence of the hormone insulin in the blood stream. So what stimulates the release of insulin? Simple carbs, especially sugars. This is why no carb diets work. By not having carbs during a meal, blood insulin stays low and fat cells do not absorb fatty acids (or at least they absorb much less).\n\nIf you're interested, here's an [hour long lecture by Gary Taubes](_URL_0_) about why the calorie balance model is wrong and how hormones regulate weight gain.",
"What some others have said about \"calories in calories out\" is true, but glosses over how much easier it is to reduce calories on a low-carb diet.\n\nA funny thing happens when you go into ketosis (your body has so few available bloodstream carbs that it starts breaking down fat). You get REALLY hungry during the initial changeover, it feels like you are starving, but it only lasts a few hours/couple of days.\n\nAfter the initial low-carb phase your body 'gives up' the hunger response and says \"I'm not getting fed anytime soon, might as well not be hungry\" so you are no longer hungry/as hungry until you eat carbs again.\n\nYou are essentially tricking your body into thinking it's perpetually starving which conversely lowers your appetite after the initial starvation period.\n\nDue to the nature of human willpower it's easier for (most) people to power through a couple of days of feeling very hungry than to feel very hungry for months-years.\n\n"
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4kxdeg | alternators | How does it generate electricity? Why does my iPhone charge less quickly through the car charger than through a wall outlet? Is there any way to fix that? Does it damage the battery in any way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kxdeg/eli5_alternators/ | {
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" > How does it generate electricity?\n\nThe alternator is constructed from a magnet, surrounded by a coil of fine wire. The magnet is connected by a belt to the crankshaft of the engine. When the engine turns, the magnet turns inside the coil, and induces a current in the coil. This is a process known as induction. It's also how power plants work, on a smaller scale of course.\n\n > Why does my iPhone charge less quickly through the car charger than through a wall outlet? Is there any way to fix that? Does it damage the battery in any way?\n\nNone of these questions are related to the alternator in your car, but rather to the USB port that your car provides to charge the iPhone. The original USB specification circa the mid 90s allowed charging at only 0.5 amps, but most modern devices will charge at 2 amps if the port allows it. Your car probably doesn't advertise the 2 amp capability, so the iPhone charges slower. So no you can't fix it, and no it won't damage your phone."
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5rub5j | what is ear wax and what is the proper way to clean your ears? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rub5j/eli5_what_is_ear_wax_and_what_is_the_proper_way/ | {
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"Ear wax is a yellow waxy substance, it's in human, and many other mammals. It's there to protect the skin, clean inside the ear, and to lubricate inside the ear. It also protects from bacteria, fungi, insect, and water.\nFrom what I've read, washing the outside of your ear and putting drops of baby oil, mineral oil, glycerin, or commercial drops helps stop the blockage and soften the wax inside.\n(This is my first time responding to one of this, hope I helped!)"
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6957h1 | why seven small sticks is stronger than one big one | Say you took a PVC pipe with a 10 centimeter diameter, and 7 smaller pipes that when bundled had a centimeter of 10 centimeters. Which would be stronger? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6957h1/eli5_why_seven_small_sticks_is_stronger_than_one/ | {
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"One way:\n\nA Crack can propagate through the whole stick, the smaller ones will have more flexibility and a crack in one can't pass to another.\n\nIt's like how metal with holes in it can't have a crack go from one side to the other, it hits a hole, and so is stronger for the holes.",
"It has to do with leverage as odd as that sounds. Imagine a solid loaf of bread and you grab it on each end and try to bend it in half. The thicker the loaf of bread, the larger the tear will be as you try to bend it and it pulls apart. \n\nNow try it with a slice of bread, or several slices of bread and you will see that they bend instead of breaking. This is because the thinner they are, the more the motion of the bend causes them to slide against each other, instead of pulling themselves apart as they bend. \n\n\nWhen you take something like a 2x4 plank and you place it on two bricks and stand on it, there are different forces at work on different sides of the wood. On the top is a compressive force as your weight bends the wood down forcing the top side closer together. \n\nBut on the bottom side there is tensile force, as it bows out it pulls apart in the middle under your weight. The thicker the board, the greater the difference between the compressive side and tensile side meaning the top and bottom of the board move farther under compression or tension. \n\nIf you used strips of wood instead of a solid board, as the wood bowed in and down, the boards would slide against each other, taking the strain more evenly, where as if they were joined they would be unable to move, dissipating some of the weight and it would promote tearing of the wood fibers until it broke. "
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5e3cf9 | why does the darkness we see when we open our eyes in a pitch black room look/feel different from the darkness we see when we close them in that same room? | After turning off the lights and the room going completely dark, I feel as though I can see/navigate better when I close my eyes (if this makes any sense?) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e3cf9/eli5_why_does_the_darkness_we_see_when_we_open/ | {
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"When you keep your eyes open in dark, your brain still tries to see things in the dark and fails.\n\nWhen you close your eyes, the brain starts trusting your other senses, including what it already knows about the room and it's contents."
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llqw1 | that little knob on the rear-view mirror | I know what it does but I don't know how it works? Does it reflect off of itself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/llqw1/eli5_that_little_knob_on_the_rearview_mirror/ | {
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"Just so we're on the same page, the knob pivots the rear-view mirror so that instead of the reflection of what's behind you, you see a faded reflection. This is to be used at night, so as not to be blinded by the headlights of people behind you.\n\nHow does it work? Simple: with a glass. The rear-view mirror contains not only a mirror, but also a glass, at a different angle, in front of the mirror. Try it for yourself: if you touch the bottom of the rear-view mirror, your finger is relatively close to the mirror. If you touch the top, your finger is farther away from the mirror. That's because the glass in front of the mirror is at an angle.\n\nIn the normal position, you're looking right through the glass at the mirror that reflects what's behind you.\n\nWhen you use the knob, the whole rear-view mirror turns slightly upwards, so that now the mirror reflects the car ceiling (which looks dark at night) and the glass is now oriented so that it reflects what's behind you. Since it's only a glass and not a mirror, the reflection is faded. And since the mirror reflects the ceiling, which is dark or at least a uniform color, it doesn't conflict too much with the reflection on the glass.\n",
"Just so we're on the same page, the knob pivots the rear-view mirror so that instead of the reflection of what's behind you, you see a faded reflection. This is to be used at night, so as not to be blinded by the headlights of people behind you.\n\nHow does it work? Simple: with a glass. The rear-view mirror contains not only a mirror, but also a glass, at a different angle, in front of the mirror. Try it for yourself: if you touch the bottom of the rear-view mirror, your finger is relatively close to the mirror. If you touch the top, your finger is farther away from the mirror. That's because the glass in front of the mirror is at an angle.\n\nIn the normal position, you're looking right through the glass at the mirror that reflects what's behind you.\n\nWhen you use the knob, the whole rear-view mirror turns slightly upwards, so that now the mirror reflects the car ceiling (which looks dark at night) and the glass is now oriented so that it reflects what's behind you. Since it's only a glass and not a mirror, the reflection is faded. And since the mirror reflects the ceiling, which is dark or at least a uniform color, it doesn't conflict too much with the reflection on the glass.\n"
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4d7n6h | why is life more abundant and diverse in warmer climates? | Why is it that warmer climates have vastly more types of animals? The only large animal I might encounter is deer. When it comes to insects, I only ever see the same small type of ants and perhaps there's a total of three types of flies. Thankfully I only encounter the same species of harmless small spiders as well. Now compare this to all the countless amounts of species you can find in Africa and it makes me wonder why there's such a huge difference. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d7n6h/eli5_why_is_life_more_abundant_and_diverse_in/ | {
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"A warm, humid climate is usually not very stressful to organisms, making them thrive. The more organisms, the more there are to eat. A steady food supply mean that species, to avoid competition, can evolve into being specialists on one or a few food sources. Many food sources mean many specialists - species."
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5oj262 | how come cops don't just bust all the escorts advertising on sites like backpage or craigslist? | Sister-in-law is a psychologist who studies sex-related topics like FWB arrangements and sex trade workers.
She showed us backpage where pros openly advertise. Seems like an easy way to bust pros...just make a bunch of appts and arrest em... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5oj262/eli5_how_come_cops_dont_just_bust_all_the_escorts/ | {
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"To escort someone on a date is not illegal. And if the paid date is over, and the couple \"happens\" to have sex, no crime has been committed. Semantics matters because lawyers. ",
"I used to represent victims of human trafficking and pretty much everywhere who is in that world knows about Backpage. Craigslist is a thing too, but not to the same extent. There would be two ways the government could go about addressing the issue - shutting down Backpage or arresting individuals who post on Backpage/use services advertised on Backpage. \n\nThe government has attempted to shut down Backpage (or at least limit the prostitution posts), but hasn't been very successful. Backpage usually prevails under the theory that it's not responsible fro what it's users publish. It also fights pretty hard to resist political pressure, like when it got in trouble for ignoring Congressional subpoenas. There's also a split in anti-sex trafficking movements about whether Backpage even should be shut down. Some say it should because it allows pimps to advertise prostitutes, but others say it shouldn't because it allows women a safe way to advertise themselves (assuming they're doing it of their own free will) and because it helps police catch sex traffickers who post on the site.\n\nThe method of arresting individuals isn't too popular because it's inefficient and usually not a priority. Prostitution is illegal, but like marijuana, not too many people care about it if it's not out in the open and no one is getting hurt. That means that police would almost rather have people making arrangements online rather than in the street since that keeps it more hidden and safer. Also, sending an officer to arrest a single prostitute and then fighting the case in court only to get her locked up for a month or two doesn't seem like a great trade off to police. If police think women are being sex trafficked, that's a different issue, but it's not always easy to tell from the ads (or at least it wouldn't be easy to catch the pimp based on the ad). Police also do set up stings on Backpage sometimes, but there are pretty much always Johns to catch - you can set up a sting without Backpage if that's what you want to do.\n\ntl;dr - Backpage as a site can't be taken down because it's not responsible for what users post and some anti-sex trafficking groups don't even think it should be taken down. Police occasionally go after individual prostitutes, but they don't do it often because it's not a high priority and it's inefficient.",
"[Backpage just removed their sex ads](_URL_0_).\n\nBut, the truth of the matter is that cops don't really give a shit about the sex trade if it goes on behind closed doors. With limited policing resources, you have to pick and choose what to go after. Most people would rather see things like violent crime & major property crime prioritized over (presumed) consensual, victimless crimes like prostitution.\n\nSure, they'll pick up some streetwalkers if a neighborhood starts getting too noticable to the common taxpayer but prostitution is pretty much at the absolute bottom of their list of concerns. It's slightly above jaywalking.",
"* because it is not clear they are actually prostitutes\n* they arrange things so it appears you paying for a date, but the sex just spontaneously happens, making it hard to prosecute\n* going after prostitution that happens discretely is a low priority for law enforcement, unless other crimes are involved",
"1.) Legality & technicality. It is not illegal to pay someone to spend an hour of their time with you. And whatever you do during that hour is purely consensual, and there is no requirement or obligation, and the payee is allowed to refuse any request. \n\nSo you have to get an explicit \"Sex for money\" statement. And any escort not already in jail will immediately end the conversation, and leave at the very first hint of this.\n\n2.) There are more important things to deal with. Usually prostitution stings are done so a police chief, or politician can go around waving the flag of morality. Not because there is an actual issue. Unless there are reports of human trafficking, drug trafficking, violence, etc. There are better uses of the police's time & tax payers money.",
"90% of all prostitution arrests are for street walkers, despite them only making up 10% of prostitutes. When cops do arrest prostitutes and Johns, they target street walkers because they tend to have sex in public, leave condoms and drug paraphernalia around, irritate the neighbors, etc. \n\nEscorts do not cause people to drive by, get disgusting and call the police. That is part of the issue. As long as people are discreet it isn't a high priority the same way that someone smoking weed at home is not the same as someone smoking crack in public and bothering people. Both are. Illegal drug use but one disrupts the peace more. \n\nAlso I've had trouble getting police help when I was a victim of a felony. So cops probably care even less about misdemeanors like prostitution. \n\nAlso escorts, if done right, are harder to prove in court. Can you prove that two people exchanged money for sex? They intentionally try to be vague about it, making law enforcements job harder. Paying someone money isn't illegal. Having sex isn't illegal. But paying for sex is illegal. There is a gray area, as patton Oswalt said 'AP English for the win' \n\nSo in conclusion reasons include \n\n1. Escorts and their customers are not really disturbing the peace or annoying the public. \n\n2. Cops are overworked and barely follow up felonies. \n\n3. Escorts and Johns use legal tactics to make arrests and prosecution harder. ",
"Why don't we just legalize it and be done with the nonsense? The world's oldest profession isn't going away and the nature of the black market puts both sides of the economic transaction at unnecessary and far more damaging risk than simple sex. \n\nYou've likely never heard of a registered massage therapist being hurt by client. That's how it should be for woman who choose to engage in prostitution. It also would work to prevent exploitation from pimps and drug dealers. Not to mention the public safety boost. \n\nNow the question was why don't they just bust them all. And one response is that it's not so easy, but the other end is that it's just not that important and most real police agencies have better shit to do. "
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enbtc7 | why do foods like curry and stews taste better the next day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/enbtc7/eli5why_do_foods_like_curry_and_stews_taste/ | {
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"Pasta sauces do the same thing.\n\nBasically, something cooked in a liquid tastes good because two things happen:\n\n1. The ingredients are cooked, which changes their flavor in a pleasing way.\n2. The essential oils of the ingredients mix and infuse within each other.\n\nWhen you let it sit overnight, it has more time for those flavors to combine and accent each other. The key is to find the sweet spot--24 hours is probably there, longer, and things start to degrade."
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72dzna | why are "serving sizes" not meaningful when they can be? | For example, I have a bag of Brazil Nuts. Servings size, 28 grams. Why not just say "10 nuts" or whatever that actually is?
Related, why do they use partial servings for food items that a person is more likely than not going to consume in its entirety in a single go? For example, Lenny and Larry Complete Cookies use "half of a cookie" as the serving size on their label.
Alternatively asked, what is the logic (or lack thereof) behind serving sizes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/72dzna/eli5_why_are_serving_sizes_not_meaningful_when/ | {
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"Serving size is how much they recommend you eat in one go. Its not healthy to eat more than one serving size per person, so companies don't want to be seen as encouraging that. \n\nThey use mass because nuts are different sizes and they need to quantify the nutritional requirements so they need an exact amount.\n\nIf you do the math on any of the examples you gave you would see how phenomenally bad they are for you (nutritionally), and companies don't want you to do that so they don't do it for you.",
"Serving sizes are a psychological trick that advertisers use in order to make things appear healthier than they actually are. The serving size can be set to anything they wish, be it a 28 gram handful of nuts or a half a cookie, but they have to represent the nutritional information accurately. So they make odd serving sizes, show that they have low calorie/sugar/fat content, and the consumer doesn't stop to think about the tiny serving size. ",
"For the nutrition labels, the only meaningful information conveyed by serving size is that the nutrition facts below apply to one serving.\n\nTo my understanding, the FCC sets the amount normally consumed in one sitting, by size, called the RACCs. Manufacturers generally try to match that to the closest numbers (or fraction of a number) of their product.\n\nEdit: to add, check out _URL_0_"
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5shlvt | what sort of job can't be automated? what can be done about automation? | Not as in stopping it, but in terms of sustaining the livelihoods of people. Automation will take most jobs which will leave a lot of people out of work. Would a base income for all citizens in a country be a solution in a way? What would people be doing in the future? Seeing as "work" which has been a large part of the day of any person will be eliminated for a lot of people. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5shlvt/eli5what_sort_of_job_cant_be_automated_what_can/ | {
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"Software developer here,\n\nThe only job I can think of that can't be automated is a designer. Even my job can be automated. Computers have demonstrated they can write very efficient software, but the techniques involved haven't been thoroughly explored for commercial exploitation because of liability - we don't know how the software works, just that it does. The designer's job, then, would be to direct the automation process.\n\nA designer's job would be to direct automated processes to produce the product of a new idea as they describe it. A computer can perfect anything already in existence, but it can't invent anything new on it's own - without sentience, a computer has no agenda, and that is the part that can't be automated.\n\nOtherwise, physical tasks are increasingly automated, and intellectual tasks can be automated, though I don't actually know how much of this is being commercialized. *The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed* is the first work of fiction entirely generated by computer (I'm still looking for a physical copy), and it's trivial to generate any sort of music. I've seen animated sequences fully driven by content that can itself be generated.\n\nI think a good deal of science can be increasingly automated, not putting scientists out of a job, but their technicians. I have a friend who is working for a company that is automating centrifuge extraction, where it's currently a manual process. Plenty of hands on science and biology in particular requires testing a lot of samples and cultures, and a lot of this repetitive work can be automated.\n\nSo I see my job changing from writing raw code to describing a solution the machine implements. Fun times for the future."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
p9i1y | income tax, its purpose and why it exists. | I feel incredibly stupid; but why/how was it conceived, and who did it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p9i1y/eli5_income_tax_its_purpose_and_why_it_exists/ | {
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"So a group of people showed up on a piece of land. They were explorers, and wanted some land for themselves because the place they come from was too crowded. \n\nThey started to build a society, little hut homes for everyone, and some people decided to farm, some people decided to make clothes, some people decided to fish, and so on. Everyone agrees that hey, we need some roads and schools, so the guys who makes the roads and schools agree to do it for some fish, and crops and clothes and what not. \n\nTime goes on and eventually they switch to a money system, and the road and school builder is like \"Hey, I'm not doing this for free.\" And the people are getting greedy and keeping all their money to themselves, instead of helping out the guy build the road. \n\nThe leader is like \"Ok, what's the deal guys?\" and makes it a law that you gotta help the guy build roads and schools and what not, cause people won't do it for the 'common good.'\n\nIncome taxes are a government mandated way of helping pay for stuff everyone uses, but no one wants to foot the full cost of, such as roads, schools, armies, healthcare, and that sort of thing. It's a way of evening out the large costs of infrastructure. ",
"**Constitutional Basis:** Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution assigns Congress the power to impose \"Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,\"\n\n**When:** The 16th amendment was ratified in 1913 and this was the start of the income tax in the U.S. \n\n**Why:** The government was getting larger and larger as time went on and a universal tax seemed to make more sense than the previous system that was reliant on tariffs on imported goods. \n\n",
"Some governments make their own money from government businesses (or instance OIL). Some governments do not make enough (or any or lose money doing this) so they have to get money from the people. They could get it from your property (what you already own) or from YOUR money. One way to get your money is right when you earn it, this is basically the income tax. It is a method the government gets money so it can run. "
]
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[],
[],
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5ahx1o | why do we burp? | Why is it that rather than just breathing out certain gases, we make an audible burp? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ahx1o/eli5_why_do_we_burp/ | {
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"The pulmonary (breathing) system and digestive systems are separate within the body.\n\nWhen you burp, it's because there's gas trapped in your stomach--that has to go somewhere. The only two options are to integrate it into your bloodstream so that it can reach the lungs, so you can breathe it out... or to expel the gas out of one of the two ends of the digestive system.\n\nBurping is just easier than the first option."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
casdcr | what goes into google's formula that "autofills" suggestions for search queries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/casdcr/eli5_what_goes_into_googles_formula_that/ | {
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"Google suggest serves a few purposes:\n\n1. it's based on the most common searches made by people \"Like you\" (your search patterns, geography, etc.) based on what you've typed so far.\n2. it serves to \\_increase ad revenue\\_ because it forces people to all search for similar ideas using the same phrase. That makes the phrase more \"sellable\" and \"matchable\" to their adwords advertising system. E.G. if 90% of people would phrase a thing one way, but 10 percent in some other less obvious way then there may be no ads aligned with the 10% phrasing. The \"suggestion\" put people back on the rails, so to speak."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
bav704 | if rhinos are hunted for their horns, would it be possible to sedate the creatures and remove the horns humanely? | I'm not sure if removing the horn would kill a rhino, but in my mind, it makes sense to avoid poaching for that reason. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bav704/eli5_if_rhinos_are_hunted_for_their_horns_would/ | {
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"Yes it's possible and it has been done, activists have also tried dying the horns to ruin the ivory. Poachers will kill them anyways to avoid tracking them again and wasting their time :// possibly out of spite too",
"Yes, but it's not a permanent solution, because when done without damage to the skull, the horn will grow back over 2-3 years. _URL_0_",
"Even if you have a way to humanely collect ivory, the very act of having *any* legitimate supply of ivory is that it allows all the illegal sources to lie about where they came from. This just makes it easier to openly sell illegally obtained ivory - once you pass it to a fence, they can fake whatever documentation it would need & get it into the legal (or at least grey market) ivory trade.\n\nThe solution is to ban **all ivory trade completely** so that you never have to argue about whether a particular piece of ivory is legal and if the person who has it knows where it came from or not."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/31/how-chopping-off-their-horns-helps-save-rhinos-from-poachers"
],
[]
] | |
3cdszp | why do people run faster when using their arms? | Why do people run with their arms swinging in rhythm with their legs? How does it help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cdszp/eli5_why_do_people_run_faster_when_using_their/ | {
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"text": [
"counter balances the motion of the legs. Watch a sprinter and you'll see they are moving the arm forward that is the opposite of the foot they are pushing with. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
7d3ft3 | how do automatic windshield wipers know when the windshield is wet? | Not to mention how wet it is.
Edit: flaired as 'technology' because there's no 'black voodoo magic' option. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7d3ft3/eli5_how_do_automatic_windshield_wipers_know_when/ | {
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"text": [
"There is a sensor on the windshield, usually translucide so you don't see the wires. This sensor act like a phone touch screen, it changes capacitance when water is rolling down on the windshield. this changes inform the onboard computer and automatically engage the wipers. Some also provide how much water there is. \nThere is a few other ways to detect rain, Different brand will use different sensor technologies.",
"...cars have these? Either I'm broke or we're living in the future. ",
"There is an optical rain sensor that is able to sense the droplets and turn the wipers on. \n\nEdit: Who the hell downvoted me? I do this for a living. Lol",
"There is a small infra-red (IR) lamp and sensor on the dash. It looks like a black disco ball. Glass is fairly transparent to IR, so most of the light escapes. However, even though water is clear in visible light water is quite reflective in the IR spectrum - so when the windshield is wet enough, the sensor sees some of its IR light reflected back. It can even measure the percentage of reflected light and estimate if it is a lot of rain or a little. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
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46sfip | - does the little amount of energy used in a hand dryer really affect the environment less than the 2 paper towels they replaced? | It sounds like the difference would be nearly immeasurable in the first place. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46sfip/eli5_does_the_little_amount_of_energy_used_in_a/ | {
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"I am not sure about the environmental impact of either, but nearly immeasurable differences can translate into something immense if done enough times. Think about this - I worked at a bagel store that was pretty busy, we sold around 150,000 bagels a year. I helped him change prices, and I realized that increasing the price of the bagels just five cents would earn him an additional $7,500 each year (if sales stayed consistant). Just think about how many paper towels the world uses each year. That can be extraordinarily significant.",
"That would depend on where the energy comes from and what kind of paper towels you're replacing.\n\nWind power replacing new-wood towels? Great!\n\nCoal fired power replacing recycled pulp towels? Less great.\n\nThe electricity that blower uses probably is less than what it took to pulp the wood, manufacture the towel, transport it, and transport it again to a landfill.",
"Mythbusters covered this (I'm too lazy to Google the link). They are both less economical and less sanitary. But they also don't need constant maintenance.",
"Disclaimer: I work with hand dryers, but links to non-biased sources follow. Also, I am referencing high-speed hand dryers, not push-button ones because they are junk.\n\nThe difference is actually quite pronounced, with hand dryers representing a much lower GWP (Global Warming Potential) than paper towels. GWP examines the resources used in production, transportation, use, and disposal of a product so it is a very good benchmark to compare two different products.\n\nHand dryers require more resources up front to manufacture, but they only need to be manufactured once and last at least 5 years (typical warranty period). Many components can also be recycled after use. Each use of the hand dryer requires energy, but modern high-speed hand dryers use very little energy; a 1500 watt hand dryer that dries hands in 15 seconds uses 6.2 watt-hours per dry, equal to a 100-watt bulb being on for less than 4 minutes. As mentioned in another reply, the energy source makes a big difference with dryers, but the only time paper towels come close is when a hand dryer is manufactured and run on coal and compared to a 100% recycled paper towel manufactured in a wind/solar/hydro powered plant that is then composted.\n\nWhen you use a paper towel, each sheet represents energy, water, and chemicals for production, plus transportation both to the facility and to a landfill (the fibers are typically too short for recycling, but paper towels can be composted to reduce environmental impact). Studies differ on the GWP of paper towels, but they are typically 3-4 times that of hand dryers. Even 100% recycled paper towels don't match hand dryers, because of resources and chemicals used to manufacture the recycled paper towel. They are certainly better than virgin paper towels, but 100% recycled paper towels still have a higher impact over hand dryers.\n\nWhen you use a hand dryer of paper towel, keep in mind what they represent, because that's really where the difference lies. The hand dryer requires manufacture once, transportation once, and disposal once.\n\ntl;dr: When we look at the resources used in manufacture, transportation, use, and disposal, hand dryers represent a much lower impact on the environment, even when compared to 100% recycled paper towels. \n\nHere are some links to studies that were not funded by a paper towel company:\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_ (This refernces studies funded by paper towel companies, but their analysis is good)\n\n\nI'd be happy to explain more if you like further details."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/06/010.html",
"http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/06/electric_hand_dryers_vs_paper_towels.html",
"https://www.rit.edu/affiliate/nysp2i/sites/rit.edu.affiliate.nysp2i/files/12rdsc15_sustainable_hand_drying... | |
bxdgqi | how does amazon go from 2 day shipping to 1 day shipping? | It seems like such a huge jump. How do you cut your industry leading delivery times in half? It's one thing to send a package in 1 day, it seems crazy to ship a random assortment of 1 million packages all in 1 day. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxdgqi/eli5_how_does_amazon_go_from_2_day_shipping_to_1/ | {
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"I have prime now which means that on some products have 2 hour shipping. All the products that have next day delivery are stored in large fufillment centres and dispatched from that location.",
"Priority shipping. Amazon prime product is sorted as soon as it arrives in a facility and if local is sent out for delivery by truck by the morning or if it's interstate it gets sorted and goes directly on a plane and arrives at destination within a few hours and is sorted and ready for delivery by morning.\n\nSource: I work in a parcel distribution centre.",
"It really comes down to where they have warehouses . Storing the items close to where people are so that when something gets ordered it's really just gonna ship from somewhere close by. Amazon has been devloping their network of warehouses aka the fulfillment centers specifically for this purpose."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] | |
4r1uui | why does everyone on reddit post links to imgur? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4r1uui/eli5_why_does_everyone_on_reddit_post_links_to/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Google images links to whatever site is hosting the image.\n\nIf thousands of people go to view the image, some small company servers may not be able to handle the requests and will be brought down under the heavy load (or at the very least cause slow loading times). In addition, some sites disallow hotlinked images. And of course if the site removes the image at some point, the link will be broken.\n\nImgur was designed for large numbers of image requests *and* is is typically persistent in that normally an image won't be taken down and thus breaking links.",
"A long time ago (in reddit history) picture links were just posted to where ever people pleased. This lead to inconsistent quality (long load times, broken links, formatting issues, etc) among submissions. \n\nOne redditor, /u/mrgrim, had had enough so he made an image hosting site just for reddit called imgur. It took off almost immediately and became reddit's main image hosting site. People reuploaded pictures to imgur because doing so avoided issues with sites going down, sites disallowing hotlinking, etc. "
]
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[],
[]
] |
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